Friday, September 26, 2008

Reflections by Ryan Galt

Some reflections on my participation in the Art of Regional Change project

Ryan E. Galt

Department of Human and Community Development

& Agricultural Sustainability Institute

I was drawn to the Art of Regional Change project for a number of reasons. First, I am a large fan of visualizing information, so I found the project title and mission intriguing. Second, I was also interested in engaging with people in the humanities. As a geographer I was used to engaging with humanities-oriented scholars, such as Bill Cronon and Yi-Fu Tuan, in my previous department. My current appointment in community development and the Agricultural Sustainability Institute generally had limited my interactions on campus to social scientists and biophysical scientists. This seemed an important opportunity to build a larger community of research and practice for the present project and into the future. Third, I had heard great things about jesikah maria ross and her work, and this presented an opportunity to engage with her. Fourth, the project also created an opportunity for me to work together with my colleague Jonathan London, who is director for the Center for the Study of Regional Change and a faculty member in my department. As this was my first year at UC Davis, I had not had many chances to get involved with projects of my colleagues.

My research project involved the creation of a map showing the distribution of organic farms by county in California (Figure 1). I used data from the 2002 US Census of Agriculture. This choropleth map is unique in that it portrays organic farms relative to the total number of farms in the county. Most maps tend to show just absolute number of organic farms, giving no indication as to whether this represents a large proportion of total farms or not. Absolute numbers are also included on the map through numerical data. I had hoped to compare the distribution of organic farms between 1997 and 2002 and perhaps even 2007 to see areas of high growth, low growth, etc., but quickly discovered that the 1997 US Census of Agriculture did not collect data on organic farms. And it turned out that the map creation came too soon since USDA announced that the results of the 2007 census will not be available until February 2009. Thus, the maps of change in organic farms over time will be created early next year.

One of my larger goals was to use this statewide map as an inset map for a more detailed map of agriculture in Calaveras County and the surrounding Sierra Nevada foothills, but I have not been able to complete this map yet. That will likely be rolled into a future project since I now have a graduate student working in the area. The map will, however, serve as an entry point for a much larger project tentatively titled “An Atlas of California Agriculture.” This will be a multi-year project stretching into the foreseeable future, and my participation in ARC thankfully got me started.

My participation in the project also involved two standout events. The first was the community mapping workshop that Mike Ziser and I led. jesikah advertised the workshop to a number of community members and also arranged to have a number of laptops available so we could all work together on a project. For the workshop, I presented a brief introduction to cartography, and Mike presented on bioregionalism. We then broke the participants into groups to brainstorm both the “what” (topics, data) and the “why” of what they might want to map for the West Point community. Each group then shared their ideas, and then all workshop participants worked to organize the ideas into potential thematic maps to be constructed. We then took a stab at using the My Maps feature of Google Maps, a tool that makes collaborative cartography possible (some photos of the workshop are available at the Up From the UnderStory blog: http://upfromtheunderstory.blogspot.com/). It is my understanding that materials from this workshop will be available through the Davis Humanities Institute website or that of the Center for the Study of Regional Change.

The other standout event for me was the visit to UC Davis of the youth from the Up From the UnderStory project, which involved faculty for an informal lunch and as viewers and commentators on their projects. Talking about their projects, their plans for the future, and playing games over lunch was really a joy. Particularly rewarding for me was getting to talk with one of the students who will be attending Modesto Junior College, my alma mater, next year. The youth presentations of their projects in the afternoon were truly outstanding. Although I had only some direct engagement with the youth involved through the project’s great blog and meeting many in West Point, I was very proud to be part of the project.


The benefits of my participation in this first of ARC projects were many. First, it provided me resources to begin work on a larger, multi-year research project. Second, I believe future engagements with ARC and community youth will continue because of the connections I have made with other ARC members. Third, it provided the opportunity to attempt my first foray into leading a community mapping workshop. I see great opportunities for these types of workshops as the starting points of community projects that document local circumstances, resources, and issues for the benefit of community members.

Read More......

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Getting Started with Blogging

Hi,

I'm Linda Toren a member of the West Point community for the past 30 years. I've been a teacher at the elementary school for the last 23 years and have just retired.

Until now, my work within the community has been primarily through the school. I love being around kids - teaching and learning - so I've started a Writer's Club at the Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth. Elementary kids have met in August and September and will meet again in December. We will work hard after the New Year on writing and art projects. Our goal is to produce a literary journal by June 2009. We alreadt have some finished stories and art to go with them. Look for them on the BMCFY website soon. I would be happy to work with teens and young adults who would like to try their hand at writing. The club is flexible and can set a time that works for them.

I have also worked with Miwok youth for the past twenty years. We will be meeting at the Youth Center starting January 2009 to work on two main projects - 1. art related to native themes and 2. revision of our earlier work with a language dictionary.

I would love to get a Book Club started for teens and young adults. This would be a chance to read and discuss literature and issues of importance. Let me know if there is anyone interested in joining or getting involved.

This is my first time blogging and I'm looking forward to the conversations.


Linda Toren

Read More......

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Up from the UnderStory Blog Debuts as a Community Blog!

Even though the Up from the UnderStory project wrapped up, there is still the opportunity to acknowledge and participate in community revitalization through the Up from the UnderStory blog. During the Up from the UnderStory project (March-June 2008) each young participant contributed to our project blog to share her/his images and discoveries as well as invite ongoing feedback and discussion of their work. With the wrap-up of the project we would like to keep the blog alive by making it an active Blue Mountain Community Blog. The best way to keep a blog alive is to encourage community participation.

You might be wondering what exactly is a community blog and how can I become involved? A Community blog showcases local news, events, and regional issues that affect the quality of life for those living or working in the Blue Mountain area. It is like an electronic community bulletin board that can be accessed by anyone who has computer access and is interested in the well-being of the community. A community blog can become successful if different community members post entries (text and pictures are welcome) and comment regularly about the life and goings on in the Blue Mountain area. If you are interested about becoming a blogger please email me at mnchordas@ucdavis.edu and let me know you are interested in posting on the Up from the UnderStory blog.

Shortly after you email me you will receive an invitation email from blogger that will provide you with step-by-step instructions on setting up your blogger profile. Once you have set-up your profile you are all set to post! Introduce yourself, let others know about community events, and local community efforts. Remember anyone with access to a computer can blog. It is simple, easy, and FUN.

Read More......

Monday, September 15, 2008

Project Reflection from Mike Ziser

I began my involvement in the Up From the UnderStory project hoping to learn something about how my passive study of the practices and principles of literary bioregionalism might be converted into an active program for encouraging a new generation of literary localists. As it turned out, I not only learned a great deal about how my expertise and the University’s resources might be harnessed in such a project, but also found myself forced to reconsider key elements of my original understanding of what bioregionalism means.


I want first to say that participating in the ARC initiative was personally very gratifying; I have rarely felt so certain that my knowledge and the University’s resources were being used in a way that made good on the UC’s (and my) responsibilities to the general public. Besides being a genuinely moving instance of public outreach and engagement, the campus presentation of student documentary and the panel discussion also brought me two significant intellectual findings.

The first was the potential for bioregional projects to play an important role in the intergenerational transfer of community knowledge. I have up to this point usually thought of bioregionalism in terms of its role in defining, differentiating, and interpreting microcultures and environments, with the payoff being the possibility of new conceptions of ecological place and political space. But as became clear both when I saw (in the documentary) the results of the student interviews of their community elders and saw (in person) the way the Calaveras community was using the UnderStory process as a channel for communication between at least three generations, it was brought home to me that a big part of the value of bioregional projects lies in the way they provide opportunities for communication that have largely disappeared from our shared culture.

The second finding related to the proper medium for bioregionalism. As might be expected of an English professor, my main experience of bioregionalism was in the first-person singular written accounts—poetry and prose—often recorded in magazines, newspapers, and (more seldom) books. This is the world of Gary Snyder, Freeman House, Gerald Haslam, David Mas Masumoto, Charlie Soderquist, and Mike Madison, to name but a few locally important figures. I had, I am now embarrassed to say, never given much thought to powerful ways that the first-person literary tradition restricts what can be represented about a community. The UnderStory project opened my eyes to the way that multi-author collaborations using other media—oral interviews, filmmaking, etc.—do not just translate the bioregional literary tradition: they transform it. Because of the widespread availability of these new media tools, bioregionalist projects will begin to become even more complex representations of multi-layered relationships. At the extreme end of this new phenomenon, bioregionalism may begin to be expressed through the anonymous, multi-author manipulation of maps that are in the public domain. Professor Galt’s and my workshop on countermapping demonstrated to us as much as to our Calaveras audience the untapped potential of technologies like GoogleMaps and Wikipedia to aggregate and expand knowledge bioregionally. If and when this potential is tapped by local communities, we will have truly entered a new era of bioregionalism, and because of the Art for Regional Change program I think I and other involved scholars will possess a rare and valuable front-seat at the creation.

As I hope is now evident, the Up From the UnderStory project and the ARC initiative more broadly have some real academic payoffs. Combined with the obvious value of the public outreach they also provide, and in light of the existence in California of hundreds more communities like the Blue Mountain region of Calaveras County, these initiatives should be considered a high priority for encouragement and support in coming years. Many thanks to the co-ordinators for allowing me the privilege of participating in this initial experiment.

M. Ziser


Read More......

Sustainability & Creativity

Alan sent in an additional musing on the post he made a couple of weeks back on sustainability. Here he brings in the creative/arts component. Have a look and let us know what YOU think.

Also, in the coming weeks we will be setting up a few community bloggers to drive the content on this blog. Alan, of course, is one of them. Rick Torgerson (West Point News) has also volunteered. Anyone else want to post announcements, news and views on community revitalization in the Blue Mountain area every now and again? If so, let me know (jmross@ucdavis.edu)

From Alan...

It seems the more I think about it the more fleshing out I want to do. I only mention in passing the importance of art and creativity and our support for those things. It occurs to me that if sustainability is to have any heart, if it is to be inspiring then the arts and creativity will be integral for any community to attract and keep individuals and families who can keep it alive. It will be active community minded people who will make self reliance work. Creativity is what makes those people work. Creativity is a currency and the larger our account the longer we last.

Read More......

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Walk and Talk About West Point

Join us at the Blue Mountain Playhouse on Sunday, September 28, 2008 between 4 and 7 for a historic walking tour of our beautiful town and learn a little about West Point in the 1800's to early 1900's.

Tours will be conducted by local historian Kurt Smith.


Proceeds to benefit:

Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth and Families


For more information about tickets for the tour (including wine and gourmet appetizers) please Contact Peggy Chambers at:

peggyc@volcano.net

293-7603 day and 293-7445 evenings

Or

BMCYF at 209-293-4500



Read More......