Day 414, May 5, 2021

Greening of the Forest (or the commons) 

Tonight's soundtrack: Herbie Hancock-Wayne Shorter Quartet w/ Omar Hakim and Stanley Clarke, Munich, 1991

I has been a chilly May. This afternoon I was on an international call with participants from 5 or 6 different time zones around the world. For some folks it was 10:30 at night, and for others it was 8:30 in the morning, and for me it was 4:30, my last meeting of the day.

We had a wide ranging conversation about the possibility of a project tying together community economies and the arts and it was fascinating to hear little glimpses of the kinds of projects and actions people are engaged in all over the world. One of the conversations centered on how to help people to engage in the project who are not supported by salaried positions. Many of us on the call are academics, and for artists who do not have the patronage of a university or other career, it is very hard to sacrifice time from art making or other income generating endeavors to engage in the academic practice of thinking and writing about economics and art.

The rain has made the forest pop
with wonderful shades of green.

We started thinking about mapping our assets and creating a resource pool where people could offer and call upon one another for various skills. If someone was making a video and needed an audio soundtrack, for example, or the translation of a document into Spanish. It would not substitute needed income, but perhaps it might be a way for us to support one another in the endeavor. 

The discussion was another reminder of how lucky I have been to have been supported by higher education in my academic life, and through that support also finding support in my creative work. Whether it is having space to write, the ability to purchase an instrument, or pursuing research projects with artists and artisans, I have been lucky that I have been able to integrate those worlds.

I have friends and colleagues who have either chosen not to engage in higher education or other ways of securing patronage, or have not been lucky enough to secure employment, and for some it has worked out well, and others have struggled. But, while the stress and strain of financial and life security is very real, the creative process and output is rich in all realms, so it is particularly good in this kind of a project, to hear the voices of people who are traditionally silenced, not because they don't have anything to say, but because the way our structures for publication (and thereby knowledge transmission) are constructed.

One of the academics shared the dismay she received when she explained how academic publishing works and how none of the contributors were paid and that the editor received only a tiny royalty, which she in turn donated to one of the organizations involved in the writing of the book. It is a strange business, but one that lends itself to thinking in terms of the commons and what the intellectual commons entails.

Like the commons of old, where people brought animals to graze, or where people shared in the bounty from fruit and nut trees, the intellectual commons is a place where ideas and articles are exchanged, sometimes with currency from behind a paywall, but often through a common collegiality, as I've experienced as I've worked to construct a new course curriculum and asked permission to use chapters or articles from various authors from around the world.

There is a kindness and mutual regard for people who share an interest about a particular topic, and academics in particular, are trained in how to give that information away... to their students, to publications, and to their colleagues. Sometimes there are people who hold their material close as if a curriculum is a commodity, but for the most part there is a community of learners who have a form of exchange that occurs largely outside of the market. It is based in kindness and respect. 

I am reminded of research a colleague from Rutgers, Kevin St. Martin was doing with fisheries in Maine and how there was a commons of information about how to utilize the seafloor maps. As different individuals gained respect and in-group status, they were given access to more detailed and more sacred maps of where particularly fruitful fishing areas were. It reinforced a hierarchy, but it also protected  important information, and it helped reinforce a code of respect.

I was talking with another colleague today and they reminded me that the university is a dispassionate machine (my paraphrase), and that it does not work to try to prove one's worth before asking for something. But, I am also in a different role and position, and I can choose to engage in some things with or without direct compensation because I desire to engage in it. Sometimes, I forget how lucky I am to have that choice.

Over the last few weeks I've been refining the curriculum of a class I will teach, and it has been wonderful to dive back into readings, collect articles, start to outline lectures, and imagine the coming together of projects and assignments. It actually looks like the class won't run for this summer, but I am ok with that because it gives me further time to continue to refine the course and develop my ideas in an even stronger way.

On one level, there is the content and how to fit that within a prescribed number of weeks. But then there is how one scaffolds both the information and the assignments in a way that helps students be successful. 

The first pass... or my first pass at constructing a class is just about trying to fit the content into the number of class meetings. How many ways can one divide up a text? When are the big assignments due? But then, one can start adding the accompanying readings that support the text's chapters. And then, what are the smaller steps a student needs to do in order to be successful at the larger projects? How do we create the supports to ensure those are integrated into the learning process in a way the student understands why they are doing what they are doing?

I think, this too, is a demonstration of respect. It is a part of navigating the learning commons. How do we all learn to be contributors to the commons? How do we exercise both agency and responsibility to the larger endeavor?

Lots of questions today, but it feels good. For the first time since I was hired into the new job, I was on campus and stood in the same space as my colleagues. We handed out free ice cream cups to students as they headed into a week of final exams. It was wonderful to talk to people in person, even if I had to lean forward into the muffled voices from behind masks. It was great to meet some of the students I've been video conferencing with all semester long and see them in person. It feels great to be a part of something bigger, to be engaged in a community again. I look forward to what grows and emerges when we are all back on campus and engaged with one another on a daily basis. 

Take care and be well,

Leo