I appreciate the sentiment of Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) in taking time to recognise and celebrate the hard work parents do.
I like to think that mums are always appreciated as much as they are on Mother’s Day (ie for the other 364 days of the year as well) – not just one day a year … I hope …
Traditionally Mother’s Day is celebrated with breakfast in bed, flowers or lunches out with loved ones.
With much work needed to address systemic gender inequities, I’m proposing that this Mother’s Day is an opportunity to recognize such issues and think more carefully about how we celebrate mums and other (female) carers.
Mother’s Day is an opportunity to consider more critically the presence and presents we are giving to mums and what these ‘gifts’ communicate, expect and perpetuate.
Keep in mind that Mother’s Day (and other similar commemorative events) are overwhelmingly driven by corporate advertising and marketers who don’t give a shit about mums – they just want to sell more crap.
Such ‘gifts’ are not very honouring, nor are they particularly thoughtful.
So for Mother’s Day 2021, consider doing things a little differently.
Consider talking to a mother (key person) in your life – and dig a little deeper. Have a D & M (deep and meaningful). Be curious about their life (if they are willing to share) listening to what they have to say – and take your time. Go beyond the superficial and every day. Ask them more probing questions and listen to their experiences. Take time to really listen to what life is like for them – to be a mum/carer and a woman-person in the world. Ask them what their life is like – all the ups and downs. Tell them you notice all the small, thankless, important things they do – and that you know there are thousands of other hidden things that you are not aware of, but you know they do anyway, to make your life easier. Explain how you are aware of how hard they work – for you, in the home, at work, in the world.
A conversation like this is something a box of chocolates can’t achieve.
Oh… and if you do want to get them a present, ask them what they really want. Something just for them – and when they tell you what it is, don’t question it, discuss it or negotiate it- just do it.
And maybe you might want to add in something else – something more thoughtful and personal. Something just from you – that you think is an adequate tribute to that special person in your life.
This session: Key to addressing human impacts on climate change is changing human demands on ecologies. My project is exploring how participating in ocean sports shapes peoples’ relationships to and knowledge of ecologies, and their ways of thinking about our responsibilities for environmental care (Olive). In particular, this project is aimed at challenging white-settler relationships to place (Kimmerer, Kwaymullina), and the ontologies that underpin how we understand ourselves in relation to the world.
Swimming and surfing remind us in deeply personal ways that we are part of ecologies, not separate from them. This includes learning to make kin (Haraway) with threatening aspects of place and space, such as sharks and various forms of pollution (Tsing).
For this discussion, I have suggested a lot of quite short readings, often from much longer texts. I have also set a recent essay that gives a good overview of my current work. You might not get to them all, but reading across at least a few of them will be helpful.
As part of this meeting, we dicussed: How can we better communicate knowledge with relevant communities and the public?
Image: Rebecca Olive
My session notes and thoughts
Below are two worldings I wrote about this session to give sense of what emerged.
Nature returns revisited
We’re discussing nature revisited and tainted returns. I’m traversing Ecofeminisms and thinking in habit(at)s. ‘Proper’ places. Sarah Jaquette posits climate anxiety is a white-person’s phenomenon. A culture of denial. Our vulnerability offsets our humility. Confusion about Margaret Howe Lovatt and Peter the dolphin’s more-than-pleasurable interspecies relations. People actively speaking about creative connections and kinships beyond family and humanness. Healing traditions. Tsing’s challenge of ‘living in the precarious ruins’. Reassuring exclusionary ethical participation. Hydrofeminisms. Definitions and distinctions between ‘locals’ and ‘imports’. PolesApart. Activists, stewards, custodians, collectors. Val Plumwood resituates humans in ecological terms. Putting humans back on the inside of nature.
Surfing ontological waves
I’m considering Rebecca Olive’s work. Surfing intensities. Reflecting on human impacted climate change and changing human demands on ecologies. Briny netroot polemics. Explorations of environs question peoples’ relationships, knowledge and responsibilities of ecologies and environmental care. Transnatural perspectives.Much needed challenges of white-settler relationships to place and the ontologies of how we understand ourselves and our actions in relation to the world. Moving Oceans. Natural environments affect us in deeply personal ways. Making kin. We are ecologies-with, not ecologies-from. Facing fears.Choices that either support or threaten ourselves, each other, creatures, plants and environments. The benefits of swimming with sharks.
But not many people know that March 21st was the UN International Day of Forests.
So to commemorate both Women’s Month and Day of the Forests, I put the call out to three inspiring female friends (Nix, Alex and Wendy) who work to improve gender and environmental imperatives – and invited them to come for a night-time ride along our bayside foreshore to visit the ‘Tree of Light’ to honour the ‘every tree counts’ key theme for this year’s Day of Forests.
And so we did – and we had a great time!
It was low-key, colourful and super fun.
I let them know I was dressing up and they were welcome to join me if they wanted to. I know dressing up is not everyone’s jam – but they all arrived at my place dressed up as well! Not only was this a way to have fun, but it was also a subversive ‘up-yours’ to social expectations of what is ‘appropriate’ for a woman to wear in public and traditional views of women dressing ‘properly’ and ‘conservatively’.
My idea was to go for a night ride ‘reclaim the night/bike path’ style. I deliberately arranged our departure for 7.30 pm – when it was ‘darkly’ – and after dinner – a time most women are socially trained to stay in as it is ‘not safe’ to be out at night.
There were four of us for this ride. On the ride were myself and the formidable Nix (who you might remember from the New Materialists Garden – PhD Retreat), as well as Wendy and Alex, who are two of ‘Green Aunties’ from my community garden. Both Wendy and Alex are in their legacy years and rode pedal-assist bikes.
Nina & Leki (L), Nix, Alex and Wendy (R)
Time for a chat
Alex cruising in style
Wendy and her ‘climate emergency response vehicle’ (bike)
Nix was resplendent!
Nina and Leki (flower bike) en route
Celebrating Women’s Month and Day of the Forests at our local ‘Tree of Light’.
Bight bike path lights
Leki’s caboose in the gloaming
Not so darkly female bike riders!
As if the aunties weren’t brave enough doing this ride, I also found out just before we left that Wendy and Alex had never been for a night ride before. This was a big win for women-them-us-community claiming public space – at night – in a super positive and direct way!
It was a stunning evening – clear, warm and inviting. The moon was out and our community was safe and welcoming.
We saw a few people as we started out, but the more we rode, the less people there were about until we saw no one on our return trip at all. We had the whole place to ourselves! While we rode we discussed what it felt like to be ‘out alone’ and ‘roaming the streets.
It was brilliant!
We rode 6kms along the foreshore, then stopped at the ‘The Tree of Lights’ to have a break where we joked, enjoyed, paid homage to women’s month – and trees and forests. Then I rode my guests happily home.
Our ride was a small, but wonderfully personal way to honour and celebrate sisterhood, forests, and being free to ride our bikes wherever and whenever we want to.
If you have not been out for night ride recently – I highly recommend it.
Grab a mate and your bikes and go visit a tree in your area!
Happy riding!
Key messages of the UN International Day of Forests
The UN are promoting 8 key messages for the 2021 International Day of Forests:
Healthy forests mean healthy people.
Forests provide health benefits for everyone, such as fresh air, nutritious foods, clean water, and space for recreation. In developed countries, up to 25 percent of all medicinal drugs are plant-based; in developing countries, the contribution is as high as 80 percent.
Forest food provides healthy diets.
Indigenous communities typically consume more than 100 types of wild food, many harvested in forests. A study in Africa found that the dietary diversity of children exposed to forests is at least 25 percent higher than that of children who are not. Forest destruction, on the other hand, is unhealthy – nearly one in three outbreaks of emerging infectious disease are linked to land-use change such as deforestation.
Restoring forests will improve our environment.
The world is losing 10 million hectares of forest – about the size of Iceland – each year, and land degradation affects almost 2 billion hectares, an area larger than South America. Forest loss and degradation emit large quantities of climate-warming gases, and at least 8 percent of forest plants and 5 percent of forest animals are at extremely high risk of extinction. The restoration and sustainable management of forests, on the other hand, will address the climate-change and biodiversity crises simultaneously while producing goods and services needed for sustainable development.
Sustainable forestry can create millions of green jobs.
Forests provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people. Wood from well-managed forests supports diverse industries, from paper to the construction of tall buildings. Investment in forest restoration will help economies recover from the pandemic by creating even more employment.
It is possible to restore degraded lands at a huge scale.
The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, launched by the African Union in 2007, is the most ambitious climate-change adaptation and mitigation response under implementation worldwide. It seeks to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million green jobs by 2030, while greening landscapes in an 8 000 km belt across Africa’s drylands. Vast areas of degraded land elsewhere would also become highly productive again if restored with local tree species and other vegetation.
Every tree counts.
Small-scale planting and restoration projects can have big impacts. City greening creates cleaner air and more beautiful spaces and has huge benefits for the mental and physical health of urban dwellers. It is estimated that trees provide megacities with benefits worth USD 0.5 billion or more every year by reducing air pollution, cooling buildings and providing other services.
Engaging and empowering people to sustainably use forests is a key step towards positive change.
A healthy environment requires stakeholder engagement, especially at the local level so that communities can better govern and manage the land on which they depend. Community empowerment helps advance local solutions and promotes participation in ecosystem restoration. There is an opportunity to “rebuild” forest landscapes that are equitable and productive, and that avert the risks to ecosystems and people posed by forest destruction.
We can recover from our planetary, health and economic crisis. Let’s restore the planet this decade.
Investing in ecosystem restoration will help in healing individuals, communities and the environment. The aim of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which starts this year, is to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It offers the prospect of putting trees and forests back into degraded forest landscapes at a massive scale, thereby increasing ecological resilience and productivity. Done right, forest restoration is a key nature-based solution for building back better and achieving the future we want.
March is Women’s Month. March 8th was International Women’s Day and throughout the month there are many other events highlighting a range of social and gender justice issues.
There were major March4Justice protests organised in all major cities (and elsewhere) around Australia on March 15th.
It was epic!
So I headed to the Brisbane protest to march!
Nina (with her subtle placard) and JenNina with inclusive side of her placard
I brought my own two-sided sign.
One side was super inclusive, the other a little more ‘confrontational’.
A friend called the controversial side the ‘the thinking person’s sign.’ GOLD!
Heaps of people said the loved the sign (both sides) and I go lots of COVID Hi-5s.
It uses bicycle inner tubes, wheel spokes and bike parts, broken jewellery, second-hand objects and curb-side barbie dolls. The sash is reminiscent of a beauty pageant, yet echoes the idea that even though women may feel free to move (the barbies bodies swing – but only as I move), they are in many ways still ‘keep in line’ (strangled by the confines of the sash’). The blondes are at the top, while the brunette (representing any/every ‘other’) is at the bottom of ‘the beauty hierarchy’. The headpiece mixes themes of gender expectations, worship, money, sex, religion, plastic surgery and armour together into a quasi-tiara-cum-pagan headdress which is deliberately a little ‘off'(-set) and awkwardly constructed.
It was very challenging hearing so many stories of disadvantage, abuse, injustice and oppression – difficult, but also very important.
There is so much that needs to change.
To find out where, when and why the protests were hitting the streets, Alicia Nally (ABC) here.
And some good commentary, Like Hayley Gleeson’s for the ABC looking at what happened after the protests as well.
Alyx Gorman wrote a good outline of the Australian protests for The Guardian wrote:
Across Australia, survivors and their allies will be calling for gender equality, and justice for victims of sexual assault, through a series of protests under the banner March 4 Justice.
The focal point of the protests will be a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra on 15 March, which many people have stated they are travelling from interstate to attend.
There, March4Justice organiser Janine Hendry alongside Dr Anita Hutchison and Dr Kate Ahmad from Doctors Against Violence Towards Women, will be presenting parliament with two petitions outlining both broad and specific requests for further action.
Outside of Canberra, there will be approximately 40 local events around Australia, starting in Perth on Sunday 14 March. Organisers are projecting that 85,000 people will participate across the country.
The protests follow a wave of allegations of sexual assault, abuse and misconduct in some of the highest offices of Australian politics.
Start of Brisbane Protest
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Brisbane March 4 Justice
Source: March4Justice
Brisbane protest
Source: March4Justice
Nina and friends
Source: ABC News
All Brisbane protest march and ‘Nina with friends’ photos by Nina Ginsberg.
Being an open and inquisitive researcher means I attend a wide range of SIGs, workshops and seminars. I’m open to lots of new ideas. Recently, I went to a feminist research group where a PhD candidate presented their work. The presentation gave me much to think about – and below is a 100-word worlding I wrote that explains why.
ATR WFU Women Leadership. Source: Worker’s Control
Cooperative Gap-ness
Passionate work to accelerate fair and (just) transitions to climate action using a grassroots union of Western Australian youths. Encouraging and political. Using Feminist Participatory Action Research and Cooperative Inquiry to be more culturally responsive, ethical and inclusive. Emotional labour. Green and ‘sustainable’ as false solutions. Extractivism of volunteers. Research(er)ing through-with-and-as ‘storying’. As insider-researcher-activists, I suggest Sherilyn Lennon’s ‘Unsettling Research’. Nicely messy. Critical cusps of Hope. Anna Tsing says hope can obfuscate activism. Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton question hope, turning instead to desire. Tactical gap-ness. Expectant tool-processes of change and reviving neglected knowledges. Wrangling manageable recuperative action.
Image: NIH Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Internationally, March is known as women’s history month.
The aim of this initiative is to redress previously omitted women’s participation and achievements from being known by celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society.
There are many exhibitions, projects, protests and events run during March that raise awareness for the significance, roles, struggles and issues of women and girls.
So to kick off ‘Women’s Month’, here are three more-than-usual initiatives that are exemplary in celebrating a range of women’s achievements.
This page celebrates March being Women’s History by highlighting a range of Australian women and the diverse contributions they’ve made to Australia’s history.
What I like about this particular page is that it is inclusive and immediately understandable in what it is trying to achieve. Having a simple photo album-style layout showcasing significant women (with names and dates) makes it quick and easy to get a sense of the range of cultural backgrounds (Indigenous, Australian-Chinese, European immigrants, white) and their contributions (politics, literature, arts, sport, law and many others) over time – ranging from Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840) to Everly Scott (2017).
I think it is imperative to not only name the person but also to give each woman just identity. Consider how many times you’ve seen historical male figures of significance. There is ALWAYS a photo of them to reinforce their status as ‘important’ and that ‘this individual is not only someone you should know the name of, but you should know what they look like.’
Including images of women is a political move in this regard. It’s a critical move to shift past erasures of significant women from not just naming them (whereby their name is ‘listed’ and therefore at risk of being yet again ‘lost’ in the density of descriptive discourse), but so that the uniqueness of each woman is also recognised – as well as their name.
Photos are especially important given that surnames are patrilineal (assigned by fathers and husbands) so it is usually only first names that distinguish individuals from others. Linking women to their first and surnameswith their photoshelps to identify AND personalise these women beyond a perfunctory mention by name in passing. This is what the RAHS site does well.
There are so many incredible women listed on the RAHS – and many that most Australians have probably never heard about. For example: Muruwari Community worker and filmmaker Essie Coffey (otherwise known as the Bush Queen of Brewarrina), or Ruby Payne-Scott who was Australia’s first woman radio Astronomer, or one of Australia’s first great actors Rose Quong, who was a breakthrough given her Chinese heritage during the Australian White Policy, or WWI war correspondent Louise Mack.
I’m following Dr Katie Phillips’ Twitter account for all of March.
In an act of radical generosity and support, each day, Katie uploads a different post each day that shares the voices, work and contributions of highly influential, but lesser-known Native, First Nations and Indigenous women from what is now called the USA.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I appreciate the forethought, planning and process that Katie applied to make this happen, but it was also an incredibly educational initiative that has far-reaching scope and implications.
Twitter’s limited text allowances meant that each day, Katie provides the name, image and brief synopsis about ‘the woman of the day’ and her significant contribution. I not only learned about these incredible women (which, as an Australian, I would have not have been exposed to), but this approach is also an invitation (and reminder) to keep learning about amazing women elsewhere around the world.
I found myself following up on many of the women Katie posted, wanting to know more about their conditions and experiences.
As a teacher, researcher, creative, and someone with half a brain and a heart, I was impressed by Katie’s approach. It showed a genuine commitment to decolonizinghistory and better accounting for diverse women’s experiences.
F@*king incredible work!
Dr. Kat Jungnickel – Bikes and Bloomers
Image: Kat Jungnickel’s book cover “Bikes and Bloomers”
Kat’s specific interest area is reinvigorating Victorian women investors and their amazing cyclewear. She published a book based on her PhD research called Bikes and Bloomers. Here’s a description of the book from Kat’s portfoilo:
The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But much less is known about another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives – cycle wear. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were inappropriate, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing more identifiable ‘rational’ cycle wear could elicit verbal and sometimes physical abuse from parts of society threatened by newly mobile women.
In response, pioneering women not only imagined, made and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertiblecostumes that enabled wearers to secretly switch ordinary clothing into cycle wear.
This highly visual social history of women’s cycle wear explores Victorian engineering, patent studies and radical feminist invention. Underpinned by three years of in-depth archival research and inventive practice, this new book by Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the lesser-known stories of six inventors and their unique contributions to cycling’s past and how they continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.
Talk about raising awareness for previously hidden women’s achievements! Go Kat!
This time last year I was in Lunsar (Sierra Leone) undertaking my bikes-for-education fieldwork.
I often think of what I saw, felt, learnt, and experienced there.
The trip was exciting, profound and challenging.
I sift through my research journal and field notes, diving into them, drinking in the details of memories brought back to life in full technicolour.
So many significant moments that won’t make it into my thesis.
Moments like Mariama and the Addax Aunties singing me in.
Addax school distribution. Girl-student-new bike. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
It is late afternoon and everyone is hot. We are in Addax and have just finished a long day delivering a school bike distribution program at the only high school for miles around. We are far from anywhere. It took a long, rutty, dusty trip squished between Kao (precariously pillion-perched behind me) and Ben upfront. I marveled as Ben cheerfully bounced the struggling moped over the dirt road to get us here, two at a time, earlier this morning. He made numerous trips shuttling all the staff members to the school collection point. I admire his skill and grace as he navigates the precarious transfer in such harsh conditions – hard work(er) indeed. It is so remote. There is no way to walk the distance or drive on this surface. Access is so limited. As I wait for the others, I think of the isolation and the implications of this walking-world for the women and girls who live here. Inconceivable. Humbling. Unsettling. I wonder what it’s like for school girls riding bikes here.
After a day at the school, Ben ferries us individually to a family a few kilometers away to gather, rest and await our return transport back to Lunsar. We will be here for a while. As the ‘guest’, I was the first of Ben’s deliveries, but on arrival I see Jak magically got here before me. I wave to him from the other side of the yard. I watched him do great work today, explaining in Kriol basic bike maintenance to the students. He was a superstar. He smiles and nods to me and accepts a drink of water as he collapses into a nearby plastic chair. Ben grins and tells me to wait here and rest: he is going back for the others. No problem I say. He takes off in a cloud of red dust. I look around me.
I see a young girl approaching me. It takes me a moment to realise she is one of the students from the school. She was in the workshop we ran. Attentive and confident, she had shuffled students around to position herself to sit next to me all morning. I liked her bold style. She had smiled shyly at me the whole time. Walking towards me now, she has changed out of her school uniform which is why I didn’t recognise her. Her clothes are oversized, stained and threadbare. A dirty white singlet hangs limply over a patched-together skirt. The material seems awkward on her lithe frame. Barefoot. She looks so vastly different from her clean, coordinated, green school uniform replete with white socks and lace-up black brogues. It’s hard to believe she is the same girl from an hour ago. Her name is Mariama. It means ‘gift from God’. She gives me a glorious smile and takes my hand.
Family hub: the cooking shelter. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama leads me to a shelter to meet her family. There are many of these ‘family clusters’ around here – hidden, unknown, near-inaccessible. ‘Here’ is a grouplet of three ‘dirty brick’ huts. I’m surrounded by extreme poverty. The huts are dotted around a cleared centre which is the hub of all family life. In the middle is the cooking place. Under a corrugated iron roof held up by poles, I take my lead from the older women and join them around the open fire pit.
Mariama is animated as she tells the women about me. They smile while looking me up and down. Small groups of young children appear and mill around, watching, listening, whispering, giggling. Some of the kids sit on their mothers and watch the braver ones sit near me. An overheated dog snoozes as a wretched little chick walks over it. A rubbish pile smoulders nearby. An assembly line of freshly made mud bricks is drying off to the right, and a collection of single-use alcohol sachets are littered on the left. Flies buzz. Everywhere I look, skin sparkles as sunlight catches diamonds of sweat. The fragrant, sweet smell of red palm oil simmering in a cauldron wafts through the compound. I hear birds calling in the surrounding bush. Clumps of overgrown tallgrass tower at the edge of the clearing and rustle noisily in the wind. The women are clicking their tongues, quipping in Temne, and raising their eyebrows in my direction. They find me amusing. I sit down quietly on the closest stone.
Snoozing dog and wretched chick. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama’s English is good and she translates our introductions, adding explanations and embellishments freely. We chat, suspended in time. Refreshments materialise. We talk about family, life and women’s business. After a while, I feel a shift in the mood. The conversation peeters out. Silence. I wait. Mariama’s mother nods to her daughter, who turns to me with a massive smile. Something has transpired, but I’m not sure what. I hold the moment, and the other women do the same.
Mama looks directly at me. I meet her gaze and hold, watching her intently. She has my full attention. She nods at me then closes her eyes. I watch her breathe. Time flattens. Tenderly and gently, Mama starts to clap. Refrain. Then she starts to sing in Temne. Lowly evanescence. Her lilt is stirring and ephemeral. The Aunties are nodding. The wind stops to listen. Mama’s voice is clear as it reaches out, rising and falling, pouring in and spilling over, flowing between and rippling through. I feel her voice seep into my bones. The Aunties join in. Snoozing dog opens an eye, sighs contentedly, and returns to slumber. The singing is rich and resonating, full of emotion and vitality. My heart pines. The timbre is achingly melodious. I listen, transfixed. After a few rounds, the lyrics change. I hear my name, ‘Nina’, included. My scalp tingles. All the women watch me as they increase in volume and enthusiasm. I am barely breathing. Mariama is singing too. She turns to me with bright eyes – what an angelic gift. The singing is still building. I feel what she is going to say before she says it. I don’t need words to know what is happening. ‘It’s for you’ she says, ‘they are singing you in.’
Recently, I attended a very unique opportunity: a 4-part virtual Geography, Art and MemoryWorkshop co-convened by Griffith’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Kaya Barry and Prof. Barabra Pini.
As a New Materialisms community bike researcher working in Sierra Leone, my work is embedded with post(de)coloniality, cultural dynamics, current-past experiences, gender, geography, mobility and space-time-matterings.
So I was excited about this workshop! Right up my (v)alley! (Get it? Geo joke!)
This workshop invited us to examine and experiment with the cultural and political potentials of ‘memory through art’ in geography inquiry. We looked at creative practices, collaborated and had discussions on some key and pressing issues related to our specific research. There was also the added bonus of an invitation to contribute to a Special Issue of Australian Geographer(2022).
In this session we asked:
What does art do to geographies of memories?
Image: Memories Through Art
A workshop in 4 parts
The workshop was structured in four parts:
Part 1 – 1st February 2021 by 5:00pm: In the week leading up to the event, workshop participants submitted a 1 page (A4 portrait or landscape) response to the question: ‘What does art do to geographies of memory?’ The response could be written, creative, drawn, mapped, photos, collage, text, prose, or more. We will share these on our website, and will form a key discussion point for the interactive workshop event.
Part 2 – 4th February 2021, 3:00pm-5:00pm: We attended the keynote presentations by Libby Harward (Australia) and Virgelina Chara (Columbia). These two artists (see below) work with the current pressing issues of geographical research, treating them as a threshold point for their own creative responses and provocations that they may choose to share during parts 3 and 4. We focused on artistic interventions from Southern epistemologies as these continue to be underrepresented in Australian geography.
Part 3 – 5th February 2021, 9.30am – 12:30pm: Each participant gave an informal 5-minute talk about their creative response which they submitted prior to the workshop. (See my submission is at the end of this post).
Part 4 (optional) – 5th February 2021, 12:30pm – 1:30pm: In the final hour, we collectively discussed how to take these ideas and discussions forward as a Special Issue ofAustralian Geographer integrating some of the workshop themes.
Keynote speakers
Virgelina Chara
Virgelina Chará is a human rights defender, educator, embroidery artist and protest music composer from Colombia. She coordinates the ‘Association for the Integral Development of Women, Youth and Children’ (ASOMUJER y Trabajo) which works with forcibly displaced families and victims of the armed violence in Colombia. She is also the leader of the Embroidery Union at the Memory Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a world-renowned educator on the pedagogy and power of memory for the construction of peace.
She was born in Suárez, Cauca, which is a region where armed conflict, extractivism and neoliberal development have meant many people, including Virgelina and her family, have had to confront violence and displacement. Since 2003 Virgelina has resided in Bogotá. In 2005 she was proposed as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
You can read more on Virgelina’s work here (left click to Google Translate to English).
Libby Harward
Artist Libby Harward is a descendant of the the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Morton Island) in the Quandamooka (Morton Bay Area).
Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym of ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – de-colonising and re-instating on country that which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.
This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the evolution of ephemeral installations on mainland country which has become highly urbanised and calls for an artistic response that seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was, and remains to be there. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
You can find on Libby’s work here and read more on her project DABILBUNG here.
Workshop foucs
During this workshop we discussed themes of memory, art, and geographical knowledge in order to motivate a creative dialogue among geographers, artists, and activists.
We talked about the key question and looked at how to move beyond methodological debates and how to use art mediums as approaches to bring to light the affective and political forces of place speaking to timely and important issues such as colonialism, climate change, migration and peace and conflict.
There was a strong focus on Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and discussions on how to decolonize feminist research involved with geography, power, labour, art, and memory.
Image: Still taken from Virgelina Chará’s keynote.
Workshop convergences, notes, artifacts and ideas
I was heavily invested in the discussions, which were provocative, rich and challenging. Out of respect for the content and participants present, I have chosen to deliberately deviate from the traditional blog ‘reportage’ style of summarising the workshop. Instead, I am using a non-linear, fragmented, messy, (in)process(un)complete, more New Materialist approach to ‘throw up’ a few random snippets, thoughts and connections I noted during these sessions. The below content is a deliberate post-human shift from presenting content as if it is ‘right’, ‘accurate’ or ‘makes sense’ to humans-participants-knowers. While some content may make sense – some may not. There are no mistakes or errors in these notes. So for the below notes, you dear reader, are implicated in the reiteration and (re)co-creation of the workshop ‘matters’ ….. here we go!
This story is ‘sew’ important …memory, history and life for so many, but new information for others (like me) elsewhere..truthtelling, invasion, pollution, academic violence and extractivism…The ‘Justice ‘ dept, The Memory Centre, the Power of Memory, parent-teacher-adult time with student-children-learner, ‘education is so square now’, pedagogy of memory, to the teachers: ‘do you realise you are the useless ones here?’… we don’t do it through writing, we do it through sewing and food, they have had massacres in every country, ‘ (Duque) he’ is just the model..creative outputs that help us think about these issues…
Some participants linked Virgelina‘s keynote to other textile protests, work and exhibitions, such as:
Libby shares with us her visionary bloodletting, deadstream and saltwater reflections. Flow. Sand Crunch. Lying in grass. Forms and textures. Listen (more) carefully. Birds-eye views. Film as experiential documentation. Art that moves and breathes. Unexpected. Tasmanian salvaged timber. Art(work)s. lying – lying. Post-colonisation – Decolonisation.
Mike is a chairmaker and researcher. Listening to Mike makes me think about how the ideological state apparatus presents a ‘version of collective memory-truth’ (ie statues & iconoclasts) – that is literally set in concrete (or other material) and associated forms of patriarchal, colonistic (tee-hee..get it?! not now, stay focus(ed), be serious!), political issues that go along with that kind of art …and that the artist is rarely? clearly? identified or acknowledged….after all it is their output/work/….
BI re(views) the memory artifacts produced: Proserpine Ambulance Depot (1990), Proserpine Hospital Outpatients Department (1939-1999), Proserpine RSL Club (1950-1990), and the Eldorado Picture Theatre (1927-1985).
Janis literary maps and remaps the Queensland Wollen Manufacturing Company floorplan(s) with mill(field)work, mill(i)visits, millscapes and milieus. Overlaying Coral’s draft interpretations of Mud Maps. Ron’s List across the ages – staff payroll (50?) years on.
Embodiment -moving through time-space-places
Public art
Art, bike, memory and geography
Institualization of memory – academic violences – uni mapping vs uni tracing
Then, Johann Rebert‘s 2017 article, noted that after a few years running, bicycle patrols increased the visibility and accessibility of police for community members.
To round off this series, I had to look a little deeper to see what became of this program.
There was a significant drop-off in publications and media after 2015. But I did find two more current mentions of the Sri Lankan community police bicycle patrol programs. One was a very positive extension (below), the other a mention in passing during a policing reform and ‘next steps’ report.
Image: Sri Lanka Police
Inaugural Ceremony of the Surakimu Lanka – Police Vigilant Committee
On the Sri Lankan Police official website, I found the below 2020 announcement:
Having restructured and renewed the Community Policing Programme in order to cater to the contemporary requirement for a secured country, The Inaugural Ceremony of the Pilot project of Surakimu Lanka – Police Vigilant Committee which will be launched Island wide, was held on December 24, 2019 at Viharamahadevi Park.
Mr. C. D. Wickramaratne – Acting Inspector General of Police, was the Chief guest of the occasion.
77 Community Policing Areas in Colombo North, Colombo South and Colombo Central Police Divisions are divided into 201 sub areas and Police officers are assigned to perform duties in relation to community policing. Bicycles were distributed among 77 Police officers of Community policing. Those Police officers will perform full-time duty within the Community Policing area they are assigned.
So it looks like bicycles do have an ongoing role with the Sri Lankan police!
Image: Sri Lanka Police
Supporting Community Policing & Police Reform
The other place I found Sri Lankan community police bicycles mentioned more currently, was in a 2020 Asia Foundation report. It was clear from reading this report, that there was a significant shift in community policing since the initial bicycle project was initiated in 2011.
Since the end of the war in 2009, there continues to be a renewed interest and growing acceptance of the need for a community-oriented style of policing to ensure post-conflict stability and normalisation.
Back in 2011, the main focus was on reducing crime, rebuilding community trust and access to police, and reaching those communities most affected by the conflict.
But now, nine years on, Sri Lankan police are still struggling with building community trust and relationships so have now taken a different approach.
The second mention of police bicycle patrols was in an October 2020 Asia Foundation Supporting Community Policing & Police Reform report. Get the full report by clicking the green button below.
It looks like the integration of community police bike patrols was part of the 2009-2016 piloting community policy phase of reform (hence little online material about it after 2015), but the report does acknowledge:
Community policing pilots were conducted from 2009 to 2011 in two districts, which demonstrated improvements in public perceptions of security, police performance, and community-police relations. Since 2012, the Foundation has engaged with police stations across the country – directly and through community-based organization (CBO) partners – to implement community policing practices such as community police committees, bicycle patrols, mobile police services and community awareness programs. Particularly remarkable are the community police committees (CPCs) which create a platform for monthly community-police dialogues to take joint actions to solve safety and security concerns in their neighborhoods. The CPCs bring together community leaders, police, and government officials to tackle community concerns before they escalate and to address persistent issues within a community.
Image: Asia Foundation
Although bicycles are still a part of the Sri Lankan Police (as the ceremony above shows) the current community support and police reform (supported by the British High Commission) is focused on towards:
Institutionalizing community policing within the National Police Academy
Integrating Tamil language training
Expediting community policing practices
Using evidence-based policy and training
Police reform efforts
Strengthening sensitive responses to gender-based violence
Establishing a Children and Women’s Bureau
Strengthening gender equity within the police force
Tracing the evolution of the Sri Lankan community policing bike patrol program has been a interesting activity. It touches on many social, political, geographic, technical and economic issues.
It is heartening to see bicycles being trialed in the national recovery and policing reform process. As well as seeing bikes continuing to be used, such programs also serve as great examples for what might be achieved in the future.
An ongoing question I have posed on this blog is: How is your bike riding contributing to making the world a better place for all?
In western countries, we think little of getting up, getting on our bikes and going for a bike ride – this is because we feel confident, safe and secure riding in our communities.
It’s easy to take for granted the inclusive access, rights and conditions we enjoy – not all cyclists are privy to the same recognition, value and acceptance that mainstream white MAMILs, (middle-aged men in lyrca) for example, experience.
This blog works to bring a range of other-than-the-dominant-norm ‘cycling’ perspectives.
Some examples which are well worth a look if you missed them include:
The incredible advocacy and bravery of the forbidden women riding bikes in Iran – a group of female bike riders who continue to push to be recognised despite a 2016 fatwa prohibiting Iranian women from riding bikes in public spaces.
Since their Instagram inception in May last year, I’ve been following @blackmuslimwomenbike.
This group of riders proudly and publicly working to fray dominant views about cycling and of what cycling bodies ‘do’, what cycling bodies should look like, and who gets recognised and valued in cycling…and to raise the profile of black, Muslim, female riders.
Meet @blackmuslimwomenbike
This group is an Instagram collective celebrating black, Muslim women who ride bikes.
Their profile shares photos, stories and quotes and bring together bike riders from around the world.
Each week, the organisers introduce a new rider by sharing a photo, a short bio and the rider’s responses to these 4 questions:
What inspired you to cycle?
How would you sum up your (biking) experience so far?
How important is it to have platform that represents you?
What advice would you give to other black, Muslim women cyclists?
Despite being relatively new, this group has a growing network and support base.
They are actively involved in a number of big ticket social riding events and have instigated their own fundraiser to support a hospital in Senegal.
I find this group exciting as they are actively building community and supporting each other to hold space and be recognised as riders, they are a formidable group of women working to make change, and are telling their own biking stories in their own words.
So if you haven’t done so already, check this group out, follow them and tell others.
Background to @blackmuslimwomenbike
Friends Muneera and Sabah were both living in Bristol, UK. During COVID they were looking for a way to keep fit and stay happy. Sabah has a triathlon background and was keen to stay active. Unbeknownst to each other, the two friends started cycling independently.
Soon after, Sabah left the UK to live in UAE and Muneera started sharing her journey in a more formal way to centre focus on diversity and inclusion and draw attention to black Muslim women specifically – hence @blackmuslimwomenbike.
Sabah joined her so they could share their biking experiences and adventures with each other (now they lived apart) and more broadly.
Soon after they were joined by Mona and Rashida and together these four women are the driving force behind the group.
Their first post is an image of Muneera wearing her helmet with the description:
“We are doing it all, the hijab, the biking cap and the helmet. As we embark on this beautiful journey that we have found, You have to be the representation that we want to see, the star we want to see, the black girls on bikes in our dreams.”
