Cultural Spaces
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Reading Refugee and Immigrant Protagonists in Children’s Literature: U.S. Undergraduate Students Examine Possible Shifts in Perspectives View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katherine Batchelor
In college classrooms, topics such as immigration and the global refugee crisis can be labeled as “controversial” and thus difficult to engage in, especially when students are asked to call into question their own privileges they carry with them in society. Negative stereotypes can be brought implicitly into discussions unless students have the chance to explore narratives of marginalized people (especially migrant and refugee children) while also explicitly challenging and reflecting upon their own biases. “If we are to undo the racial inequities that continue to plague us, we must find constructive ways to talk about them and intervene constructively and consciously to end them” (Carter et al., 2017, p. 209). This study investigates how engaging in reading children’s literature may have altered students’ perceptions of the global refugee crisis and immigration policies to become better global citizens. Participants were unique in that they were undergraduate students from the United States enrolled in a semester-long study abroad program in Luxembourg, all from various majors enrolled in a children’s literature course. Texts included graphic novels, young adult literature, picturebooks, and self-selected titles centering protagonists seeking immigration or asylum as a refugee. Data are pre- and post-questionnaires, visual projects, and reflections. Findings include students’: 1) initial interpretations of who an “immigrant” or “refugee” is shifted pre-to-post experience; 2) empathy increased after putting themselves in the protagonists’ shoes (using literature as a “window”) (Bishop, 1990); and 3) appreciation of the urgency of the global situation in which the “refugee” protagonist fled their homeland.
'Real' Farmers and 'Natural Pioneers': How Rural Authenticity Obscures Global Issues View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anke Bosma
How do we address issues that pose world-wide problems when we cannot imagine them as global? The Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world. Significant sectors of this industry are highly unsustainable, the reality of which begs world-wide questions about how food is produced and consumed. Yet, internally, the producers of those products, farmers, are frequently framed in solely national terms. In this paper, I show how this framing can be employed so effectively and how it benefits big-agrobusiness by obscuring major problems. I argue there is a pervasive idea of what an “authentic” farmer is and that this idea is saturated with idyllic notions that often contradict the current material reality of farming, for example by obscuring mechanization, digitalization, and international trade. I will do so by close reading a case study: a Dutch show called Onze Boerderij. In light of this analysis I also wonder: Is there a danger in thinking environment over economy, when the two are so intimately linked? In order to engage with this question I turn to how more sustainable ways of producing food are framed: often as an idyllic escape from globalization by becoming one with nature. Through a close reading of the documentary Plattelandspioniers I argue that the imagination of sustainable farming is not deviating much from the imagination of mainstream agro-industry. Thus, global issues remain obscured and the question arises: what kinds of agricultural change can happen when its imagination remains as limited.
