Ability within disability: Reflective memories shared with Dr Kasturi Varley

In a post-apartheid South Africa, the value of reflective memories and their impact on community history gives credibility to their relationship with personal struggles such as disability, be it physical or political. Shaped by South African Indian heritage, an isolated individualised case of a second-generation descendant’s ability–disability experience is researched and narrated in this article. The respondent, Dr Kasturi Varley is a woman of the South African Indian community, who was born almost 101 years after the first shipload of Indian indentured labourers arrived in the then Colony of Natal. Her memories shed light on a unique Indo-African-European experience. Her indentured paternal grandfather arrived in the African continent in August 1900. Her reflective memories and shared experiences of various episodes of the ability–disability paradigm add to the body of knowledge of the Indian indentured labour system that already exists and partially fills up the prevalent gaps in the research on this topic. Her story is unique in that she worked wheelchair-bound at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and subsequently settled in the United Kingdom. This study applied a qualitative research methodology.Contribution: This article provides insight on reflective memories within the domain of social memory and contributes to an understanding of the historiography of the descendants of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa. In 2020, this community commemorated the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the labourers to the Colony of Natal.

Walking to the Pier and Back

This article narrativizes a walking go-along interview I, a cis white queer man, completed with JS, a Black trans young woman, while walking to the Christopher Street Pier in the West Village of New York City. The narrative form of this piece works to think against white- and cis-normative senses of time-keeping and place-making by illuminating how our bodies and social positions were perceived in relationship to each other and the environs of the go-along. While the Pier has long been an important public and community space for trans and queer Black and Latinx communities, especially young people, it has concurrently faced waves of gentrification that have made this place inhospitable to these communities. Giving an account of this walking interview through this contested area attends to JS’s experience and perception of place, community, history, and safety, including the ways it aligns and is in tension with my own and others’ experiences and perceptions of the Pier and its surroundings.

COOPERATION BETWEEN ACADEMICIAN OF NAS OF UKRAINE PETRO GOZHYK AND THE PROFESSIONAL PUBLIC

Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Petro Feodosiyovych Gozhyk, as the director of the Institute ofGeological Sciences of NAS of Ukraine, worked closely with professional public organizations, in particular with the PO «Unionof Drillers of Ukraine» and the PO «Union of Geologists of Ukraine». This paper highlights important activities initiated by publicorganizations, which were carried out with his active support and direct participation. Among such events: «Round Table todiscuss the Concept of efficient use of renewable deep hydrocarbon resources»; the Olevsk scientific and practical conferenceswere important for the geological community: «History of discovery and study of the Perga beryllium deposit as a world exclusive»,dedicated to the 60th anniversary of exploration works at the Perga ore field; «State and prospects of development of the Pergaore district». Each of these events has become a significant contribution not only to the development of the mineral resourcebase, but also to address legislative gaps in the extractive industry, promoting the development of public institutions.

On Not Knowing

The Department of Music of the University of Pennsylvania has an ongoing research partnership with several faith-based organizations in the Philadelphia area. At the core of this partnership, ethnomusicology professors are leading academically based community service (ABCS) classes in which students engage with local Christian and Islamic communities in order to produce ethnographic films that document the history and musical practices of these communities. The chapter discusses the authors’ experiences in ABCS work, with a focus on gospel music research projects and studies of the relationship between music, spirituality, and Islam. A second project explored the ways in which young members of an Islamic community partnership organization engaged with hip-hop culture. The process described can be best characterized by an idea of “creative uncertainty.” Drawing on growing literature in visual arts that takes the position of “not knowing” as a strategy of engagement, the authors suggest that the production of community research through principles and processes of academically based community service and engagement are best served if researchers know how little they know, and are humbly open to what they might learn, while willing to share expertise they may have to jointly create narratives of community history and belonging in dialogue with members of neighborhood faith-based organizations.

Preserving History for the Persistent Legacy of Our School: A Youth-Led Participatory Heritage Project

This in-process project report describes a critical youth-led participatory heritage project that seeks to document, preserve, and make digitally accessible oral histories, archives, and artifacts of an urban, predominantly African American high school with a rich history and legacy. As a long-standing community institution, the narratives emerging from this high school are intricately connected with the larger story of the city of Philadelphia. This article uses an equity-based lens to demonstrate how youth-led participatory heritage can contribute to youth empowerment, critical consciousness development, and critical digital literacies. Implications for schools and communities experiencing gentrification, displacement, and community change are provided, including how participatory heritage with youth can utilize collaborative, asset-based efforts to foster change that allows youth and communities to have agency over their individual and collective stories, community history and legacy, and their futures.

The Hauntings and Heart of a Place

This autoethnographic research presents personal stories from the author, connecting family, land, and music. He recounts stories his Ojibwe grandmother shared about her time in Franz, a small railroad village in northeastern Ontario that is now a ghost town. The connection to Franz is established through memories from his grandmother. Inspired to write a song, the author aimed to reconnect to Franz itself. The study follows the author's personal journey to visit his grandmother's land for the first time, making new connections and stories along the way. The research utilizes Indigenous autoethnography, Indigenous storytelling, and arts-based methods, such as a/r/tography, to link his stories to those of his grandmother, resulting in a reflection of storytelling, community history, and (re)connection to land, woven together by stories from the family matriarch.