Minorities

Field notes on disturbing ethical questions, part 2

Posted onTuesday 14 July 2015Wednesday 15 July 2015

Just as the worrying realities of Field notes on disturbing ethical questions, part 1 are starting to really register as I read, there’s a quote in the book that hits me hard: Because feminism has challenged the pose of neutrality and objectivity that for so long governed positivist social science, it has forced us to…

Field notes on disturbing ethical questions, part 1

Posted onMonday 13 July 2015Wednesday 15 July 2015

I’m eating lunch and reading one of my methodology books and scaring myself. It’s Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, 2nd edition. Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber is the editor. Don’t get me wrong — it’s an excellent book full of really well-written articles on precisely the things I should be considering in order to write a good…

Gleeful news! :-D

Posted onFriday 26 June 2015

Whew! Got my definition for indigenous hammered out adequately, I think — thank heavens! It’s been a pretty good couple of days so far, in fact, which makes me very happy. There’ve been a few really nice or fun things that’ve left me pretty pleased with how life is going. Admittedly, I wish I could…

Definitional angst during the dissertation blues

Posted onMonday 22 June 2015

Due to the subject matter of my dissertation and proposal, I’ve had to include a Glossary. Dear heavens, what a headache. Here’s my introduction to the Glossary, with reasoning: Because of the ever-changing nature of the English language, the definitions of words can be slippery to pin down. This issue is compounded when particular words…

Finding the source of dis-ease

Posted onThursday 18 June 2015

Butter chicken for dinner tonight — yum! It’s in the crockpot and starting to make the house smell delicious. Combined with the fact that it’s summer and my proposal deadlines are all stalled until my adviser returns from her (well-deserved) vacation, that means I find myself with a bit of writing time on my hands,…

My esprit de l’escalier, part 1

Posted onWednesday 22 April 2015

There is a French term I love: esprit de l’escalier. It translates literally as “wit of the stairs,” and means roughly “the concise and clever retort that occurs to you too late, as you are on the stairs and leaving the scene.” I was sad to hear it is rarely used any more in French,…

Setting goals

Posted onWednesday 18 March 2015

Time for another 15 minutes (minimum) of writing, so I start getting back into the habit of doing so… The 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions is meeting in Salt Lake City, UT this upcoming October 15th through 19th. One of my sister scholars suggested several of us get together to present a panel there,…

Struggling with defining personal ethics

Posted onFriday 19 December 2014Tuesday 23 December 2014

Some years ago I had a friend with whom I lunched on a weekly basis. At that time he was on a job team that had something particularly difficult and complex to accomplish. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal except that, frankly speaking, the manager was terrible. He wished to hear only that…

Thoughts on V. Shiva’s “Staying Alive”

Posted onWednesday 29 October 2014

I’m reading Vandana Shiva’s Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, & Development for an on-line class on Ecofeminism which I’m TAing. The following are two comments made on the class forum at different times. While reading both the book and the forum comments, I was reminded of a study I read about many years ago (which means…

“Toward A Queer Ecofeminism” by Greta Gaard

Posted onWednesday 24 September 2014

The following is a quick review of an article read for the Ecofeminism class in which I am a TA — yay! I’d like to figure out how to TA more… though apparently you cannot TA for a class you haven’t actually taken. Considering the changeover in classes occurring in my program in the past…