Cooking Commoning Subjectivities: Guerrilla Narrative in the Cooperation Birmingham Solidarity Kitchen

In this chapter, we explore the recently developed concept of guerrilla narrative as a tool that offers great potential for militant research. “Guerrilla narrative” emerged from the politicization of the oral history tradition; it was developed by Marco Armiero as a research tool to explore histories of contamination and resistance in subaltern communities. In this chapter, we broaden the scope of guerrilla narrative and explore its role in the reclamation/invention of the urban commons. Particularly, we look closely at the tools that contribute to the creation of commoning subjectivities. We focus on the mutual aid relief operations led by the grassroots organization Cooperation Birmingham during the COVID-19 pandemic, analysing both their solidarity kitchen and newsletter. We argue that both are manifestations of guerrilla narrative in the sense that both produce counter-hegemonic narratives while fostering commoning practices. This means that guerrilla narrative goes beyond the wording, textual or even artistic paradigms to incorporate more embodied forms of storytelling, such as the practice or running a solidarity kitchen or other forms of material commoning practices.

Harvesting a participatory movement': Initial participatory action research with the Jewish Farmer Network

The Jewish Farmer Network (JFN) is a North American grassroots organization that mobilizes Jewish agricultural wisdom to build a more just and regenerative food system for all. This paper pre­sents methodological findings and reflections from the initial stages of a participatory action research (PAR) collaboration led by the authors and JFN organizers centered on Cultivating Culture, JFN’s inaugural conference in February 2020. For this early iterative phase, we used a PAR approach to guide event ethnography to both facilitate and understand collective movement building and action. This work included pre-conference collabo­rative research design, a participatory reflection and action workshop with roughly 90 participants, eval­uative surveys, short ethnographic interviews, and ongoing post-conference analysis with researchers and movement organizers. While this data was first analyzed and organized for JFN’s use, we present findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of fore­grounding event ethnography within a PAR re­search design at an early stage of movement for­mation, especially how elements of event ethnogra­phy can address some of the limitations of using PAR with a nascent network of farmers. Our work revealed themes in the movement of Jewish farm­ing: the politics of identity in movement building, the tensions around (de)politicization, and the production of Jewish agroecological knowledge. We reflect on the utility of using PAR to frame scholar-activism and propose future inquires for Jewish agrarianism.

Heroines of Compassion and National Consolers: The Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation and the Politics of Memory

The article explores the politics of memory surrounding the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation (VWMF) – the grassroots organization that led the campaign to establish the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, DC. Drawing on archival material, public statements, and interviews with members of the group, it demonstrates that the organization used the ambivalences and anxieties surrounding the Vietnam War's remembrance to argue for the commemoration of women who served during the war. The VWMF portrayed those women as heroines of compassion – similar to men in terms of courage and selflessness, but different because of their benignity and benevolence. However, the VWMF's depiction of women's compassion was informed by national loyalties and sentiments; it acknowledged Vietnamese civilians only as objects of American goodwill, and failed to engage with ethical questions concerning American intervention in Vietnam. By drawing attention to women's dedication and compassion, the organization carried out a symbolic rehabilitation of American actions in Vietnam. It contributed to solidifying the dominant mode of representing the Vietnam War through the lens of American military sacrifice and fostered an understanding of the Vietnam War as an American national event.

Simulating the Cause: How Grassroots Organizations Advance Their Credibility Through the Dramaturgical Curation of Events

To survive, nascent grassroots organizations—and their respective causes—must earn the trust of various audiences that can impact credibility advancement. However, it can be quite difficult for grassroots organizations to access suitable settings, times, and collocated audiences. One context that can yield this type of access is an event as it constitutes a rare opportunity for organizations to engage in practices that impact credibility advancement. We investigate how a volunteer-based grassroots organization orchestrates a high-profile event at the United Nations to promote African diaspora entrepreneurs as a valuable force in the mitigation of development challenges in their home countries. We employ qualitative data collected from ethnographic observations, interviews, and secondary sources and apply grounded theory approaches to demonstrate how organizational credibility can be advanced through performative strategizing within event settings. Drawing from heuristics used in theatrical performances, we found that the grassroots organization mobilized specific audience groups in participative role-playing across two acts, thereby producing and consecrating a temporary simulacrum of a cause-related community it claimed to represent. Our findings demonstrate how an unproven organization can strategically use audience mobilization to convert event settings into performative spaces for simulacrum creation and credibility advancement.

Approaches for Disseminating Environmental Research Findings to Navajo Communities

We report the use of three different dissemination approaches for providing environmental research results back to Navajo communities from different research projects. The objectives of the dissemination are to provide the results to the community, have a dialogue about the results, and learn more about the environmental concerns of the community for potential future research projects. The first approach utilizes radio announcements and flyers provided to the community announcing dissemination meetings specific to the research projects. The second approach is more collaborative, working with a grassroots organization to organize report-back meetings, as well as one-on-one discussions of the research project. The third approach involves the development of a booklet for distribution to communities along with an oral presentation at the regularly scheduled monthly community meetings to discuss the information. Overall, the second and third approaches are more effective than the first approach in terms of dissemination to a larger number of community members, as well as increased dialogue between the researchers and the communities.

Characteristics of Physiology and Physiology-Related Pre-Health Degree Programs in the Physiology Majors Interest Group

The Physiology Majors Interest Group (P-MIG), a grassroots organization of educators, has collected data on the history and characteristics of Physiology and highly related undergraduate programs (ex: Human Biology, Pre-Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, etc.) that serve a common population of prehealth students. Data was obtained as part of an online survey sent out to P-MIG conference attendees at the 2017-2019 annual meetings (n=30). Participating institutions indicate that 25.9% have degrees called Physiology aligned with 28% being housed in a department of physiology, 75.9% are a Bachelor of Science program, 34.9% are affiliated with a College of Arts and Sciences, and 80% have a human/integrative physiology emphasis. Further, 47.6% of programs are greater than 10 years old and 100% have seen either no change or an increase in enrollment over the past 5 years. Most programs have a dedicated advising staff (68.2%) and formalized learning objectives for the major (61.9%). 34.1% have a curriculum committee who oversees the major. Program sizes vary widely from less than 50 to over 2000 students. While there is diversity in departmental organization and management structure in the programs, a commonality is that all programs are preparing students with aspirations in careers in healthcare. We report the similarities and differences between these programs to allow for advisors to better understand the broad landscape of pre-health programs at the undergraduate level.

“RECONSTRUCTION HAS STOPPED THE NONSENSE”

Increasing research attention is being given to former felons, or returning citizens, after their release from prison. This paper contributes to that dialogue by exploring the documentary-making process of a grassroots organization founded by and for returning citizens and their families, and the contributions it made when it was completed in 1996, and continues to make today. Little is known about how community organizations can use the making of an organizational documentary to build the capacities of the organization, its affiliates, a neighborhood, and social change. By exploring the collaborations and challenges that took place during the local reintegration process back into family and community, the start and completion of the documentary in the mid-1990s was quite innovative. This article analyzes reciprocal tensions of service (Simmel 1908) reflected in the documentary when it was completed in 1996, and its continuing relevance to the growth of returning citizenship today.

Grassroots Organization and Justice Through Social Media

This chapter will provide the reader with information on the importance of grassroots organization in addressing social justice issues for speech-language pathologists (SLP). The authors provide background information on the use of social media to promote social justice efforts. The chapter also identifies and discusses the development and implementation of two online platforms that have been effective in raising awareness about the importance of diversity, advocacy, and social justice issues in the field of speech-language pathology. It provides the reader with important information on the issues and problems in the field of SLP that led to the development of the two online platforms and the processes involved with developing them. Finally, the chapter concludes with a description of previous and current goals and outcomes, along with future endeavors of both platforms and recommendations for others who are interested in using social media as a tool to transform professional environments to facilitate justice within the discipline and society.

Postspatial, Postcolonial

This article centers two new media projects that imagine Palestinian decolonization, given the occupation of Palestinian land: news site Al Jazeera English’s 360-degree video tour of al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem and Palestinian grassroots organization Udna’s three-dimensional rendering of destroyed village Mi’ar. These digital texts reimagine Palestinian access to land as a community-driven and intergenerational project. In this analysis, access is formulated as a term that invokes the following: new-media analyses of the digital divide (or differential resources for obtaining new media across lines of race, nation, gender, etc.); disability studies’ notions of access as intimately tied to political power and infrastructure; and postcolonial studies’ criticisms of colonial access in tourism and resource extraction of the global South. The article brings together these discursive nodes to formulate an understanding of space that imagines decolonial futurity. This future-oriented political practice works toward a vision of Palestine determined by Palestinians, as opposed to limiting pragmatic wars of maneuver. This inquiry therefore is centrally concerned with the ways activists for Palestine employ immersive digital media to formulate and work toward an attachment to decolonial futurity that is both practical and utopian.

Community-Based Recovery for Sexual Violence Victims: The Case of Hapsari

Sexual abuse victims experienced physical, psychological, economic and social violence, which lead to trauma. However, there has been no systematic policy to support their recovery. This paper argues for the need for a recovery mechanism system for sexual violence victims, as implemented by Hapsari. This study employs a qualitative approach, with interviews as the means to obtain data. Subjects in this research included women and children in the North Sumatera. This research finds out that community-based recovery has a significant impact on the victims, and is able to empower them to be independent in making a decision and blend with society. As a grassroots organization, Hapsari supports community-based services to reduce violence against women and children, protect victims and gather supports for the sustainability of recovery services. Apart from this, the state should also participate in protecting those people, especially in terms of policy and regulations.