Season 03ish - Episode 04 (Crossover): Talking Culture
In the fourth episode of this mini-season, "Crossover," Anar Parikh chats with Daniel Chiu Castillo, Meghan McGill, and Alejandra Melian-Morse, the trio behind Talking Culture--an anthropology podcast that looks at issues in the world through the lens of anthropology as well as issues within the discipline of anthropology itself.
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00] Anar Parikh (AP): Anthropological Airwaves is the official podcast of the journal American Anthropologist, whose main offices are located on the traditional and ancestral territories of the Anacostan, and Piscataway peoples. The Anacostia and Potomac rivers have long been places of trade and gathering for Indigenous peoples, and Washington D.C. is now home to diverse Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. American Anthropologist has published articles throughout its history that have taken knowledge from Indigenous peoples for a scholarly audience and has not required its authors or editors to be good relations to Indigenous peoples and communities. Acknowledging territory is only one step in repairing relationships between anthropologists and Indigenous peoples. The Editorial Collective of the journal is committed to deep listening and engagement with Indigenous scholars, peoples, and communities to explore ways to be a better relation.
[00:50] This episode of Anthropological Airwaves was recorded and produced from the traditional territories of the Catawba, Waxhaw, Cheraw, and Sugaree peoples, and specifically in Charlotte, North Carolina—a city located on the traditional crossroads of two Indigenous trading paths: the Occaneechi Path and the Lower Cherokee Traders’ Path, which facilitated the extensive trade network of Cherokee, Catawba, Saponi, and Congaree peoples prior to colonization. While many descendants of Cheraw, Waxhaw, and Sugaree communities eventually joined the Catawba peoples, today, the Catawba Nation continues to thrive as a federally recognized tribe located less than one hour south of where this recording took place.
[01:30] Parts of this episode were also edited and produced on the Indigenous territory known as Lenapehoking, the traditional homelands of the Lenape also called Lenni-Lenape or Delaware Indians. These are the people who, during the 1680s, negotiated with William Penn to facilitate the founding of the colony of Pennsylvania. Their descendants today include the Delaware Tribe and Delaware Nation of Oklahoma; the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, Ramapough Lenape, and Powhatan Renape of New Jersey; and the Munsee Delaware of Ontario.
[02:00] Talking Culture, the guest on today’s show is produced on the traditional territory of the Gan-Yen-Ge-Ha-Ga Kanien`kehà:ka (Gan-Yen-Ge-Ha-Ga) on the land known as Tio Tia Ge Tiohia:ke. (Tio Tia Ge)
[02:06] intro music begins
[02:28] AP: Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for another episode of Anthro Airwaves – the official podcast of the journal American Anthropologist.
[02:31] intro music ends
[02:35] AP: My name is Anar Parikh, I’m a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at Brown University and the journal’s Associate Editor – Podcast at American Anthropologist. I use she/her pronouns. I’m also the Executive Producer of this show, I’ll often be the all-in-one producer/host/engineer of Anthro Airwaves episodes. In other words, you’ll be hearing a lot from me! But don’t worry, you’ll also be hearing from plenty of other anthropologists and scholars whose work we look forward to featuring on this show in a variety of formats including interviews, conversations, experiments in sonic ethnography, and ethnographic journalism.
[03:09] AP: Before I introduce the episode, I want to remind y’all that Anthro Airwaves is launching a new segment called “Anthro Help Desk,” where we’ll be answering your questions, comments, and concerns on all things anthropology. Perhaps a theoretical concept is tripping you up, you’re looking for tips and tricks to use in your anthropology classroom, or you’re trying to resolve a long-standing debate about the ontological turn with one of your colleagues! Well, cue the dial tone!
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[03:39] AP: Anthro Airwaves is here to help! If you have a question, you’d like us to answer, please send a short recording to amanthpodcast@gmail.com with ANTHRO HELP DESK in the subject line. Detailed information about submitting a question to Anthro Help Desk and on how to pitch episodes to Anthro Airwaves is available on the Anthropological Airwaves section of the American Anthropologist website.
[04:02] AP: Okay, on to the show! As you might remember, the theme for this mini-season is “Crossover,” and Anthro Airwaves is featuring anthropology podcasts and the people who make them! Each episode, I chat with the host or hosts of a different anthropology podcast about their show, why they make it, and how it connects to their broader work. After a short interview, Anthro Airwaves will feature an episode of the show and include information on where you can learn more about our guests and their work! Believe it or not, this episode is the final installment of our mini “Crossover” season, and I’m really excited to introduce our guests: the trio that makes Talking Culture, a podcast about what it means to be human, and all of the ways anthropologists explore that question. Talking Culture is a podcast produced with support from the Anthropology Department at McGill University and CKUT, the university’s campus community radio station, and you can learn more about the show at www.talkingculture.ca. The show’s team includes Daniel Chiu Castillo, Meghan McGill, and Alejandra Melian-Morse all graduate students and in the anthropology PhD program at McGill, so let’s start with a round of introductions.
[05:12] AP: Daniel is a first-year PhD student at McGill University whose research focuses on exploring the types of cultural and political engagements that emerge through popular religion in Mexico City, particularly relating to the cult at La Santa Muerte (the saint of death). More broadly, he is interested in the incorporation of critical media practices to ethnographic research, particularly the use of ethnographic film to explore the sensuousness of everyday religious experience.
[05:42] Daniel Chiu Castillo (he | him): Hi, thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here and my pronouns are he/him and yeah, thank you for inviting us.
[05:50] AP: Meghan McGill she is a second year PhD student in the anthropology department at McGill. She studies, archaeology in the interior plateau region of British Columbia. Her background is primarily in cultural resource management in the same region where she has worked as a consulting archaeologist for the last 10 years. Back in academia after a long absence Meghan's research interests include collaborative Community based approaches to heritage management and heritage legislation in Canada, decolonizing methodologies, and investigating gendered roles in the past, through a feminist perspective. Meghan, welcome.
[06:26] Meghan McGill: Thank you. Yes, I'm really happy to be here, where we're so excited. Thanks for having us.
[06:31] AP: And our third guest is Alejandra Melian-Morse. She is also a second year PhD student in the anthropology department at McGill. Her research interests lie at the intersection of anthropologies of environment and media. In her PhD research on her on nature documentary filmmaking, Alejandra explores how the collaborative entanglement of humans, non-humans, and institutional powers come together to create a specific representation of nature through the nature documentary production process and on how semiotic communication occurs between humans and non-humans through the senses and recording technologies. Beyond film being the focus of her research, Alejandra integrates ethnographic film practice into her own work.
(07:13) Alejandra Melian-Morse (she | her): Thank you. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here to too. I can't wait.
[07:16] AP: Alejandra, Meghan and Daniel welcome, and thank you so much for taking time to come and chat with me on Anthro Airwaves. So, as I mentioned, when I initially reached out to you about coming on this series this season is an opportunity to feature the range of podcasts anthropologists are making. So,to start I'd love to hear a little bit about the origins of Talking Culture and what brought each of you to the podcast.
[07:41] AMM: Yeah, um, I can speak to that. During my first year at McGill I decided that I wanted to start an anthropology podcast because I'm a huge podcast nerd in general, but I was also really inspired by The Familiar Strange, which is the out of the Australia National University, um, I love their show, and what I really love about them is that they're speaking to anthropologists, but also to the anthropology curious, I think, as they like to say. And I think that that's really good. I think anthropology is so much to offer everyone's thinking not just academics’ thinking and I wanted to create something to help people think anthropologically but also to provide a space for graduate students in our department, especially, to share their insights. Yeah, don't know, I just I think that my peers are really brilliant, and I think that they have such valuable knowledge and the idea of a space, you know to talk together, but also to talk to an audience is really exciting
[overlapping speech]
[08:36] MM: Yeah, I mean. Alejandra and I are in the same cohort, here at McGill, so, um, when she brought this up, I was really excited about it. Um, also a huge podcast nerd. Alejandra and I have shared many a podcast recommendation with one another. But I think like what kind of drew me to the project to begin with was, was the ability to be able to like reach a broader audience because, like coming back to academia, I was really feeling that, like kind of weight of like academic language and, and like gate-keeping and all these things--having seen it from another side, where I didn't really have a lot of access to those things for a really long time. And so, making this podcast felt like a really great opportunity to like be able to share what we do with, with not just other anthropologists and archaeologists but, like our friends and family and other listeners of a broader audience.
[09:21] AP: Totally. And Daniel?
[09:24] DCC: So, I’m the one that arrived the latest to the team, and so in a big way I'm very grateful for Alejandra and Meghan to having invited me and, and, in some way, just like you know, trying to catch up to all the work that they've done. But I think, I think my motivations are very much in line with Meghan and Alejandra in as much as I think anthropology needs to find ways to be relatable to the wider public beyond our writing, and now that we have different mediums like podcast and you know, and videos, we should explore those possibilities too. And you know and our goal is in some way to make it accessible to not get to lost technicalities, but you know, to make it accessible.
[10:07] AP: Yeah, I also started podcasting as an anthropologist as a massive podcast listener---like I feel like a lot of people listen to music, but for me that's like the soundtrack in the background of my life like I use it as like a Pavlovian response to start doing chores and stuff like that—
[10:24] overlapping laughter
[10:25] AP: But I think also what I have learned, especially from writing scripts, at least for this season of Anthro Airwaves, is how much of an opportunity there is to really distill, or like think about how you're conveying information and, and what that will be for someone who's listening on the, on the other end so that really resonates with me.
[10:44] AMM: We’re gonna talk about the episode a little bit later, but the one, “Precarious Beings,” that we've shared That was originally a chapter of my master's thesis that I kind of adapted for the podcast, and writing it, and you know going through it, and translating it in a way, but also like picking out the parts that did work perfectly like for podcasting was a really interesting process, and I think that you know that act of translating academic work into a spoken medium really tells you a lot about like the content and what in there is invaluable in kind of a different way.
[11:20] AP: Yeah, it's not always, it's not always the same thing that you would expect when you're writing. And, my next question is sort of related and as a team of three y'all are actually the largest podcasting team on this series—which says a lot—and a lot of independent podcasts, especially academic podcasts, can be like one or two-person jobs, and I'd love to hear a little bit about how you make Talking Culture, or how y'all divide up the various parts of making a podcast in terms of like content and then also like the technical parts. Do each of you have like expertise or know how that you kind of divvy up?
[11:59] AMM: Well, I'll let Meghan and Daniel speak to the division of labor, but I think just I think that it's relevant because we're talking about the size of our team to talk about how we had originally conceptualized this project. When I originally talked to Meghan about starting this the idea was for it to be sort of like a collective. I'm a really big believer in collaborative work filled with lots of perspectives and ideas, so I wanted a lot of people involved in there were like 10 people who started off producing the podcast. But that wasn't sustainable, you know people get busy, and so eventually it ended up being me and Meghan for a while and then we asked Daniel to join, so for us this feels like a distillation of what was initially a project with know, a much bigger endeavor, personnel wise.
[12:49] MM: Yeah, and we also still incorporate collaborators in the project, so we have people come to us with pitches and then we produce, the three of us, produce those episodes. We are responsible for individual episodes, so we still do have like additional people on the team it’s just kind of more flexible and allows those collaborators to spend as much or as little time as they have or want to spend contributing to the podcast, which has been working for us. There's a few like pitfalls with that model, I think, bur I think we're working it out in and we're so like proud of our first season and really excited for Season Two. I guess in terms of like specialties, I came to this expecting, fully, to just help with like project management and to not be a voice on this podcast and not write any episodes. I had no editing experience, but yeah, now I do all of those things, so…
[13:37] overlapping laughter
[13:39] MM: I think we've all been like learning along the way, I know, Alejandra and Daniel had a little bit of experience so I'll let you guys talk to that, but yeah for me, this was definitely like a learn as you go thing but it’s been really fun.
[13:50] DCC: Yeah it's been definitely interesting that I don't think there's specialties necessarily. Like, we've all had to learn basically everything that is needed for this, to keep happening, so…We all edit, we all manage social media, and in that sense, it’s a very rich experience, because you get to learn a lot of different skills.
[14:09] AMM: Yeah, and I think that it's been nice that we each take on certain episodes. So, when we're going through the ideas for a season, like right now we're organizing Season Two, we come up with episode ideas or and we look at the pitches that have been submitted to us and we'll choose which episodes we want to take on producing. So, then we go from there, and so we're in charge of this one episode, but everyone contributes to like talking and to some editing. And we like we take the lead on this specific episode that we're doing, and I really like that way of doing things because it lets us just kind of focus on what we're passionate about and focus on what we're interested in, so for us it's more about the topic of the episode and what we want to be talking to people about and we get to do all of the, all of the parts of that job.
[14:53] AP: Alejandra and Daniel you both have experience with like making film, which came up just a second ago, and you do research that is grounded in multimodal ethnography, and ethnographic film is a cornerstone of both of y’alls work, so I'm curious about what overlaps or perhaps like notable differences you've observed between making ethnographic films and making and anthropology podcast.
[15:18] DCC: I guess I’ll just speak quickly to that. I think one of the nice things about making podcasts is that it allows a bit more control. In some sense, like you can write a script and you can record at a certain time, and you know there's not as much contingency which is, you know, part of the magic of ethnographic film, but you know it's, it's a huge difference because with ethnographic film graphic you’re kind of at the mercy of whatever may or may not happen and, it's a different kind of attunement. And I think both, both obviously are interesting and productive mediums but you know, I think that would be the biggest difference for me.
[15:53] AMM: Yeah, for me it's very different. Maybe the software is only one of the things that is kind of similar—the video software and the audio software is pretty similar. But, I don’t know, as I grow and evolve and as an ethnographic filmmaker, I’m also constantly trying to make language take a back seat in my role. Like, words, I don’t want words to be playing as big of a role. ‘Cause my research is about humans and non-humans, so I’m trying, at least, as I continue with my work to follow Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s lead a bit—who made Sweetgrass and Leviathan—and he kind of, he focuses on all kinds of semiotics; not just language and not just on symbolic communication. So, I’m trying to do that too, and to make language be there in my films but not be so central. And obviously, in podcasting words are almost literally everything so it’s a very different way of thinking and expressing my ideas. But there is an overalp though, that I really appreciate, which is being able to capture what a guest or like what a subject—when it comes to film—is saying or doing directly. In both filmmaking and editing, even though there’s editing involved in both of them, I get to share with the audience, not just what the person has said or done but how they’ve said or done it, you know. And so, you get to hear the person’s voice, or in the case of film you get to see their facial expressions while they’re talking, you know. So, the quality of their interactions is still there, which is kind of the difference when you’re writing I guess—even though you can try to capture that in writing too, but I like the immediateness of the guest or the subject in both podcasting and film. You get to hear the person's voice you get to see or you're in the case of film you get to see how their facial expressions rather talking, you know, so the quality of the interaction is still there, which is kind of a difference When you're writing, I guess, even though you can try to capture that in writing to but I, like the the immediate midst of the of the guests, or the or the subject and in both podcasting and film.
[17:36] AP: Alejandra you were just talking about this a little bit in terms of like our own try to move away from words in your own work, but I am curious to hear about a little bit more about how making this podcast has informed or transformed how you're thinking about your own projects.
[17:53] MM: I guess like, this kind of just came to me recently, ‘cause I’ve been thinking about my dissertation research a lot. But having this as a different medium for disseminating information or for like knowledge production within different descendant communities, I think that audio could be, like, a really interesting way to do that; especially given like a tradition of oral history in like the communities that I work with. So, you know, lately I’ve been thinking a little bit about how I might be able to like take this and use it do something a little bit more creative as a part of my dissertation projects. Not that that will necessarily be like what they want to see, a bunch of archaeologists don’t necessarily want to see me, make like a podcast about that research, but, yeah I was thinking about like what the community might think about having the work that we do together be presented in a different format—in an audio format—and how that might be able to be incorporated into my research. So, it’s not really fully formed yet, but it’s definitely kind of shifting how I’m thinking about it. Especially because I wanna carry that kind of theme of accessibility that brought me to the podcast into my own research because I’m focused on collaboration and working with descendant communities.
[19:07] AP: It sounds like, I mean, at least as a cultural anthropologist a lot of the recordings that I make or that I have from my fieldwork are mostly just for me at this point, but thinking about it more from like a production standpoint also creates opportunities like, as you mentioned, to for that to be things that other people can hold on to or that that your interlocutors can hold on to but also like actually listened to, not just the the sort of like field recording of conversations that you're having in the field.
[19:37] MM: Yeah, I'm really curious to, to see like if I do end up putting this as part of my project, um, what the community might want from a podcast or from like some sort of audio presentation of the research that they could be a part of making, and that would be made for them, you know so I'm actually like really curious what they would think about that will see. TBD. [laughter]
[19:58] AMM: For me it's, it's been making me think a lot more about sound, you know, obviously, because we're working with us on medium and even though we haven't done a lot of field recordings in our podcast yet where we, we would like to start integrating more field sounds, and more you know, more than just conversations and talking as the project grows, And so, I've been thinking, a lot more about what it means to capture moments via audio, um because so much of what I do otherwise is with video--and you get to you get to see what's there,.I think that this project has been really good for me to think about audio as like just as an important part of the fabric of what's happening in the space and like in a moment and to not rely so much on just like what you can see, but there are things that audio can tell you that visual can't so much really you know and to be getting better at listening--literally listening-- has been a huge part of how this project has helped my work.
[20:57] DCC: For me yeah, I, I think I resonate a lot with what Alejandra just said. Actually this semester I’ve been taking a class about sound ethnography and so, the role, the role of that sound has in contributing to the complexity of lived experience is incredibly rich and often times ignored, but it’s also—as we’ve talked before—helped me think of different ways of translating my work into a form that is more easily legible to others, I think. Because in writing, some of the scripts I try to, you know, think of, as you were saying, think of the person that is at the receiving end and how, how that might be translated as more of a conversation than monologue in some way.
[21:47] AP: So, I think, moving from talking about the process of the podcast, I am eager to hear more about the conversations that you’re having on Talking Culture, and as your podcast description notes, what you’re trying to work through is what it means to be human, and the ways that anthropologists kind of explore that question. And, you note that human experiences are experiences are so vast and varied, and anthropology is a discipline that seemingly infinite approaches, whether methodologically, theoretically, or conceptually for understanding those experiences and I'm curious like, how y'all are approaching that enormity or perhaps trying to reduce it down to a more manageable size?
[22:32] AMM: Yeah, I mean that's the thing right? Like, anthropology podcasts is so enormously broad because the anthropology itself is so enormously broad. Even if you don't take into account all of the different subfields , even just social socio cultural anthropology itself is enormously broad, right? So we try to organize ourselves by seasons and so on each season we choose a different theme, and the way that our episodes are all kind of connected in some way. This season our theme is boundary, so all of our episodes have something to do with the idea of boundary. But, you know, boundary itself is broad enough, so it doesn’t feel like it constrains us too much but there is some sort of, you know, connection between all the different conversations we’re having.
[23:15] MM: Yeah, and I think those themes for the seasons really helped us to kind of think through like “how can we, how can we even pick episodes?”, you know we just said, we want to do an anthropology podcast. You could do that about anything…Picking those themes, like for me especially, like really helped me to think about like “hey, what could we talk about under theme of boundary?” Like it's really broad, but it also can kind of help us to think through things like in a little more specificity, but also like, how can we make boundary interesting and how can we get people to think about a thing that might seem really obvious in like a different way.
[23:54] DCC: Um, and I guess the final thing I would add to that is that, in that sense at the structure that we have of each person produces a certain amount of episodes, like it gives us also further freedom to explore whatever really interest us and and to follow those the interests to you know, whatever possibilities there are to explore so it's really, really fun, in that sense.
[24:19] AMM: Yeah, it's good for us as researchers too, you know?. Like as I’ve been reading for my own project and, like thinking about my own research, now that we've been talking about boundaries for the podcast so often, like you know, every time the word down or like a concept about boundary comes up in anything that I'm engaging with it, it sticks out in my head. And so, it's it's making me take note of a theme in my own research that I might not have seen there before. And you know so it's kind of just adding a conceptual layer to our thinking about the podcast but then everything beyond it as well.
[24:53] MM: Yeah, and I think also like, adding are “In the News” segment, which was kind of a later addition to the format has been really interesting in terms of like thinking about things that are happening now with an anthropological perspective because we spend so much time thinking about, well, I especially thinking about things that are past, you know that happened before, and having a lot of like slow time to think about them, which I think is great, but having the in the news segment., I think allowed us to see those kind of things as they were happening and use this anthropological perspective in kind of a different way and to show how like you could use it in that way to like other people who might not think of it in that way that makes sense.
[25:33] AP: Totally, I mean and and, that's actually, um, something that also came up in my conversation with another one of the podcasts will have already aired by the time Talking Culture episode plays—podcast time is weird, but
[25:46] laughter
[25:48] MM: It is, yeah (overlapping speech)
[25:49] AP: the May episode of this series is with um Zora's Daughters and they do, Yeah, um, huge fans.
[25:58] MM (overlapping speech): Yay! We love Zora’s Daughtrers
[25:59] AP: Me too, um, and they do a segment as a part of their show every week or as a part of each show um called what in the world and, and we were talking about how to a certain extent they're planning episodes sort of trying to think about what is happening in a particular moment but with another episode, and it just happened that something happened that particular week that was like particularly prime for talking about this this topic, and it really highlights, I think, both in the way that our starters talks about it, and the way that. Meghan you're describing the in the new segment how these concepts are really a part of our everyday lives, right? But that often the ways in which is connected to like very concrete everyday experience it's distilled or lost in academic language, right? So, also like connecting it to what all three of you have talked about in terms of expanding the legibility of your work or of anthropological concepts like, I think that what's happening in the world and talking about that in a podcast format really speaks to that.
[26:59] AMM: Yeah, it's been helpful for me to like sometimes i'll come into you know something outrageous will have happened in the world, and so I show up to our in the news recording and like I'm all riled up and upset or whatever—normally upset considering like the news cycle. And then I'm like get halfway through talking and I'm like oh right and I need to be connected this anthropology. And I wanted to talk about this, and now I am but how am I, bringing this back to anthropology and so it's good practice for me as an anthropological thinker to see what's happening in the world and, like practice not only getting mad about it and, like getting instant about it but also using the tools. That I've been taught in my work and in my discipline to help me think through these things that are happening as well you know so Sometimes I feel like I separate my end apology brand. from high like you know contemporary news brain like human in the world, brain and I miss, but this segment has helped me kind of bring those together and and make anthropology be kind of an approach to my everyday life, not just my work.
[28:08] MM: Well yeah, and we started this podcast I mean not knowing how crazy of a year, it would be in the year that we ended up releasing it we started this, like kind of in September, October of 2019 we started working on everything, so like not knowing what was to come, you know, having that “In the News” has been like a like Alejandra was saying, like a good way to not only kind of process, some of those things. but also to like bring those two worlds together my anthropology brain or my like, yeah, that I have to use all the time in school but also like the side that is looking at the things that are happening in the world and wanting to engage in them and, like thinking about them in a different way, that I would having conversations with other people in my life, you know, so I think “In the News’ has been like so helpful for me just Personally, I guess, but I really enjoyed doing it, especially because Daniel and Alejandra always bring such interesting and and great things to the table every week every two weeks a month. Every month. podcast time is weird.
[29:08] AP: Very weird. So, I think that that's actually a great that's a great segue into getting ready to introduce listeners to the episode of Talking Culture that y'all have chosen to feature on this episode or on this crossover. I think that's a great segue into. Sorry, let me do that over, and I think that is a great segue into talking about the episode that y'all have the episode of Talking Culture that you'll have chosen a feature for this crossover episode and that that episode is titled precarious beings. Alejandra, you talked about it a little bit at the top, but I wanted to know if there's anything but listeners who haven't heard it yet or maybe who haven't heard an episode of Talking Culture, yet to know before they dive in.
[29:37] AMM: Yeah, um I think this is a funny process of choosing this because we really love this episode, and we got a lot of good feedback on this episode, so we wanted to feature it, but it was there were very early episode. We were still getting used to being behind the mic when we recorded it, and so we're getting used to talking we're getting used to being recorded, and so it feels very green but that's also kind of part of what I love about it is that it was early on in our process. But it's a style that I really like; we're trying to combine interviews styles with creative essay styles and other things, and this one is a creative essay style and we're hoping to be more of this in the future, so I thought it would be a really good example, but it was a very early episode.
[30:20] MM: Yeah, I think this is like maybe the second time and I had recorded together ever, when we did some of the work for this one. So yeah it's early but I, I also really liked this episode, and I think it's really kind of showcasing that the different direct like different directions that we want to take the podcast this year we did do a lot of interview format, because you know with the Covid situation it's easier to be able to interview people sometimes with you know the long distance or the distancing aspect of it but I'm really excited about next season and the ideas that people have for more of like a mixed format like this episode. And so, I'm glad we chose it to highlight that I think especially to show like where the podcast came from, I guess, because it's an earlier one, but also where we're, where we're planning to go.
[31:05] AMM: You know that's such a good point.
[31:07] AP: Well, Alejandra, Meghan and Daniel Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and for taking the time to chat with me and for agreeing to have Talking Culture be a part of this crossover series.
[31:18] MM: No worries that was our pleasure Thank you so much for having us.
[31:19] outro music begins
[31:21] AMM: Thank you.
[31:22] DCC: Thank you, thank you very much for having us thank you.
[31:39] AP: The interview portion of this episode was hosted, produced, and engineered by Anar Parikh, the Associate Editor – Podcast at American Anthropologist and Executive Editor of Anthropological Airwaves.
[31:43] outro music ends
[31:51] AP: The intro and outro music you here is “Waiting” by Crowander. A closed-caption version of this episode is available on the Anthropological Airwaves YouTube channel, and a full transcription of the episode is available on the American Anthropologist website. Links to both are included in the show notes. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Anthropological Airwaves wherever you listen to podcasts. This is the final episode of our “Crossover” mini-season, but we’ll have some new episodes to share with you really soon and you won’t want to miss out! Also, don’t forget to rate and review us wherever you listen to Anthro Airwaves. A five-star review in particular will help other listeners find the show! We would also love to hear from you in general. If you have feedback, recommendations, or your thoughts on recent episodes, send an email to amanthpodcast@gmail.com. You can also reach out to us on our Facebook page Anthropological Airwaves or on Twitter @AmAnthPodcast. Find links to all of our contact information in the show notes and on the Anthropological Airwaves section of the American Anthropologist website.
[32:53] AP: Now, Without further delay, stay tuned for “Precarious Beings” from Talking Culture.
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[33:01] AMM: I'm Alejandra Melian
[33:03] MM:.And I'm Megan McGill. Welcome to Talking Culture.
[33:06] AMM: Welcome to Talking Culture.
[33:11] MM: Before we begin,
[33:16] MM: we'd like to acknowledge that this podcast was produced on the traditional territory of the Kanien'kehá:ka on the land known as Tiotiake. We recognize the Kanien'kehá:ka as the rightful stewards of this land.
[33:38] AMM: In the summer of 2018, I conducted my MA fieldwork in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. It was a beautiful setting for my first fieldwork experience. All summer I was surrounded by towering spires and meses, red rock and those wide low desert skies. I was very much at home among the cacti in the dry heat, and I felt a sense of kinship with anthropologists such as LC cous, Parsons, Ruth Bunzel, and Ruth Benedict who had focused their anthropological careers there or in areas close by. But although my research took place physically in the Navajo Nation, my research subject was an outdoor education program there in New Mexico called Cottonwood Gulch. Having always had an interest in environmental anthropology, my work there focused on the relationships the staff members and participants of the program formed with the desert around them, both physically and ideologically.
[34:36] MM: So why have you decided to talk about this project today?
[34:38] AMM: Well, I've thought back a lot to this research since I've been thinking about boundary for the season of Talking Culture.
[34:44] MM: Yeah, why? Why is that?
[34:46] AMM: Um, I think partly, it's because I was so out there for those months, you know? I was sleeping in sleeping bags under tarps or just out under the stars a lot of the time. And a lot of the boundaries that are normally a part of my everyday life seemed to be pushed or challenged. And I don't think I was alone in that either. This was a really big part of what was happening for everybody out there.
So I want you to come with me a few years back to the northwest corner of New Mexico.
It was the end of the summer, and soon all the kids would be gone. Tearful goodbyes awaited us in our near futures and the evenings were cooler now as if to warn us. Normally, I would have been on the porch of the dining hall talking with other staff or in a cabin with my trek group trying to get them to go to sleep. But on this one night, I stood on the back of a truck with my group's leader Tory as she passed items up to me as if we were getting ready to depart on yet another Cottonwood Gulch adventure. Standing up there on the truck, the sky stretched out before me a deep orange darkened by grey clouds. Tori and I didn't chat as we loaded everything up. There was no lightness in our movements or excitement in our voices. Because this departure we were preparing for wasn't an adventure. It was an escape. Fire loomed over the hills. More experienced staff were tracking its movements receiving updates on where the wind was taking it and considering the likelihood it pass through Basecamp where we were. How close would they let the fire get for evacuating? There wasn't much I could do. This type of decision was way beyond my experience level. But I could help Tori pack up a truck so we would be ready just in case. When we were done packing up. We drove the truck to the dining hall so some others could load up some food. By this time it was dark and there was nothing left for me to do but go to sleep listening for the sound of emergency bells. The bells never rang and the next day the truck was unpacked, evacuation avoided. But that night as I lay in my sleeping bag trying to get some rest, I was acutely aware of my powerlessness. Part of it was that there was nothing more I personally could do to help out. There I was trying to sleep while other staff members would spend much of the night tracking the fire. But even they were rather powerless. There would be no stopping the fire if it came through. Only escaping it. The desert had a way of reminding you of your powerlessness. Whereas the night before I had felt secure and safe in my sleeping bag. That night, I felt small, vulnerable to everything around me. But that was part of being at Cottonwood Gulch. And I came to understand it as a vital part of the Gulch's teachings. It might offer an empowering sense of freedom, but the price of that freedom was the harsh realization of one's own precarity.
[37:40] MM: Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by precarity?
[37:43] AMM: Yeah, of course. Within the anthropological literature precarity is most often used in terms of a person or populations economic instability. Usually it's talked about in the capitalist context and used to describe unpredictable economic conditions of life.
[37:58] MM: So is it always about economic insecurity?
[38:00] AMM: No, that's only one type of precarity. For example, in her book Precarious Japan, Anne Allison argues that precarity is connected to, but not always interchangeable with precarious labor. She looks at social precarity, and the condition of feeling insecure that can disconnect one from a sense of social community.
[38:18] MM: That doesn't really sound like what you're talking about either, though.
[38:21] AMM: No, not really. Here, I'm talking about a type of precarity that isn't commonly talked about in the literature, which is environmental precarity. That's vulnerability to ecological forces, that moments like waiting for a Southwestern bushfire make really clear.
[38:34] MM: So if you had a hard time finding examples of environmental precarity and anthropology, how did you go about thinking about this for your research?
[38:41] AMM: Well, I found Judith Butler's discussion really useful. Her conception of precarity stems from the idea that people are all intimately connected to one another, so much so that the boundaries of the self are more porous than we normally imagine them.
[38:54] MM: I like that. It's like our lives aren't entirely our own.
38:57 AMM: Yeah, that's exactly it. And the way I think about it, if our lives are derived from other humans, they're just as much derived from nonhumans. Human bodies and lives rely on other species and objects for food, shelter, and safety, too.
[39:09] MM: So, the precarious position of humans isn't only about economic or social instability, but this vulnerability as well.
[39:16] AMM: Yeah. But I also want to point out that Butler makes an important distinction between precariousness and precarity. While precariousness applies to all humans, because we're all interdependent on each other so we're all vulnerable, precarity is unequally distributed and makes some people more vulnerable than others. And this distinction applies when thinking about the environment, too.
[39:36] MM: That makes me think of environmental justice and how that movement has pointed out that ecological disasters and changes affect those already in vulnerable positions more than those with privilege.
[39:45] AMM: Yes, exactly. In my fieldwork setting, most of the kids are came from places of privilege and wouldn't have been described as existing in the state of precarity, whether economic, social or environmental, although there were a couple of exceptions.
[39:57] MM: So using Butler's distinction, they existed in a state of environmental precariousness, like we all do, but wouldn't have experienced the precarity that is the immediate vulnerability to the ecosystem
[40:07] AMM: Except at Cottonwood Gulch. Over the course of the summer, these kids found themselves in situations where they were very vulnerable. And these situations showed them how much they relied not only on each other and the staff but also on their relationships with the nonhumans they encountered and interacted with.
I'm going to talk about environmental precarity at Cottonwood Gulch by giving examples of how people learned about their reliance on different factors shelter, food, water, animals and material objects.
The most obvious type of shelter that hikers or campers use is a tent. Sometimes trekkers that cottonwood Gulch learned how to build lean tos, but it would have been impossible to build shelter from found materials every night while we were on the road or backpacking. Groups needed shelter they could bring with them to set up and take down every day while they were on the move. Some of the youngest groups use tents, but these weren't actually very practical in the desert because the wind blew sand into the zippers and they constantly got stuck, so older groups camped under tarps instead. The first thing to staff in my group taught our kids to do on the first night was to set up their tarps, camping tarps or rectangular pieces of water resistant fabric that vary in size. Usually, they have four ropes attached to each of the four corners and two ropes attached to the middle of the tarp that come off the ends. If you're setting up the tarp in an area with trees, the first step is to find two trees the tarp fits between and tie the end ropes off to them. If there are no trees available, you have to use tarp poles which work through a combination and balance and some sort of camping magic. Once you've tied off the end ropes, you have to tie off the corner ones. Getting the angle right is important because you need to pull the tarp in the right direction so that the fabric between the corners won't sag. You tie the corner ropes either to stakes which have been hammered into the ground, or to brush or rocks. Setting up a tarp is satisfying once you've gotten the hang of it, but it's a hard thing to master. You have to know your basic knots, to have the patience to tie and re tie them in order to get the angles right, and if you're using the tarp poles gain a basic understanding of physics or at least balance. It took a group a long time to get the tarps right. Despite having learned on the first night and repeating the process almost every evening for the rest of the summer. The rule was that they always had to set up a tarp even if they planned to sleep out under the stars. No one wanted to be caught in a storm with no tarp up. But for the first half of the summer, hardly a drop fell. Because of this, the group couldn't really understand the issue with their saggy tarps for a long time. Every evening, the staff would tell them to redo their angles and every evening they would grudgingly redo them only slightly improving the sag. Eventually though, monsoon season hit and the damn kids finally understood the importance of getting the angles right on their tarps. The tarps, or more their relationship to the tarps, were one node of the network of things and beings keeping them safe and comfortable.
[43:02] MM: So I'm hoping that we can talk a little bit more about precarity, using this example. It seems like one that people can can really relate to I know I did, having been, you know, a young camper myself, at one time. I suffered the consequences of a poorly constructed tent and a very rainy night.
[43:21] AMM and MM: *Laughing*
[43:21] MM: You learn pretty quickly that how vulnerable you are. But do you think that this or I guess, would you say that this demonstrated precarity to you and the campers themselves? Like was that a concept that they were thinking about out there?
[44:34] AMM: Yeah, we definitely have didn't put that word on it. This concept is something that I came across and started thinking about more deeply after the fact after my fieldwork was over. And I was starting to think more theoretically with my ethnographic material. So it wasn't like the next morning, the staff were saying, "see, like campers. See how precarious your position out here is? This is what precarity is."
But it definitely made them realize, perhaps if precarity isn't the word, a certain vulnerability, right, like they understood that they would be seriously affected, like their stuff was wet now, and they were hiking, and they needed to just keep going and now their shoes are wet, and they're uncomfortable. And so I think, I think that they probably would have thought of it a little bit more as being like vulnerable to the elements and that these tarps and the fact that we've been trying to get them do them right for the entire summer, we're doing that because they actually are vulnerable to rain. It's a reality, and it affects them and there are consequences. I think that before the beginning of monsoon season, they hadn't really realized that type of vulnerability yet.
[44:46] MM: Even if you weren't using that term, precarity, do you think that the campers kind of experiencing that feeling of precarity or vulnerability, maybe for the first time, if they were coming from, you know, more of a privileged background than we might think, typically, people who are in environmental precarity come from? Do you think they were kind of connecting that to how others around them might experience a similar feeling of vulnerability to the environment?
[45:09] AMM: Well, probably not originally, not maybe by themselves. But we did have this wonderful thing that we would do every night, that we just called campfire, whether or not we had an open fire, where we would sit in a circle and talk about our day. And so we would reflect on what we had experienced and how we could connect that to our lives outside of Cottonwood Gulch. So we did, we as staff members did sometimes guide conversations that were more connecting the physical experience to other ways of being in the world, and what other ways that people might be experiencing similar things in the world.
While on the road, we carried six water coolers that provided water for drinking, cooking, doing dishes and brushing teeth and washing hands. The roots our group took through the desert often depended on where it would be possible to fill up the coolers and the search for water sometimes ended us in some unexpected spots. Water was constantly on the back of staff members minds. It was easy to get dehydrated in the desert, and the goal was to drink five liters a day, which was convenient since most water bottles held one liter. Anytime a kid complained about not feeling well, anytime they were being whiny, anytime they were getting tired too fast, staff members' instinct was to ask "how many water bottles have you drunk today?" Finding water while on the road was mostly something that staff worried about. While backpacking though, the trekkers were involved in this worry because they had to ration their own supplies to be able to make it to the next source. Worrying about water could really change a backpacking experience. Our group took two backpacking trips over the summer. The first was along a branch of the Hila River in the Hila Wilderness in New Mexico and the second was up Mount Tukuhnikivatz in the Manti La Sals in Utah. As our group leader, Tori, pointed out to me, the Hila hike was the "backpacking is fun" backpack while Mount Tukuhnikivatz would provide a bigger challenge. Part of the reason the Hila was the "backpacking is fun" trip was that water was never an issue. The trail followed the river and anytime we were getting low on water, it was right there to fill up with. It wasn't just the quantity of water that made it easy, but the quality. Staff taught the kids how to look for the best places to collect water. The faster it was running the better and it was important to avoid gathering it from places where livestock might be nearby. Since the Hila was a wilderness area, there was no livestock and the water ran fast and clean.
In the la Sals, we were more careful. There, we were hiking on range land and while the water we found did look very clean, we were wary of the cattle we had seen while hiking. We were serious about straining our water through our bandanas and added drops of bleach to kill bacteria. Finding water was also harder in the la Sals. Tori had planned our route out ahead of time but when we arrived at many of the places there was supposed to be water, it was nowhere to be found. Along with learning how to make sure water they were drinking was clean, the trekkers learned the importance of hydrating when they were able to. During backpacks when the water situation was insecure, it was important to drink as much water as possible when they did find it. Our reliance and water is obvious, but it becomes a lot more apparent when finding it isn't a given.
[48:28] MM: So we touched a little bit already on how environmental precarity might allow us to think about social justice. I found that this section talking about water really drew me into thinking about that, again, because access to water is definitely something that we think about kind of in our everyday lives, we hear a lot about it. We hear about you know, other countries and struggling to have access to clean water or even in our own country in Canada, First Nations communities and their access to water is an issue here. So I guess I was wondering what you think that the campers might have gained from experiencing environmental precarity, especially in relation to water, in this sort of controlled way, because you guys knew where there was clean water, you knew how to clean it, you had access, but I think that experience of thinking that you might run out or or that there might not be safe water, might have been something new to them. Am I right with that?
[49:20] AMM: Definitely. And honestly, it was scary. There were moments that were actually scary, like the the other staff members, and I didn't really want to let the kids know. And moments when we like got to the point in the map where there was supposed to be water and there wasn't, we just had to keep going and like, I don't know the kids running low on their water their water bottles and having to tell them "you need to ration that. Like, we don't know, when the next time we're gonna find water is" you know, we wanted to stay calm. We didn't want to scare them, but we also needed them to be responsible. And I think that although we didn't want to instill any panic, I think that there were moments where it was scary for them too, and as much as I am not for like scaring children, I do think
[50:05] AMM & MM: *laughing*
[50:05] AMM: I do think that it's important that they were a little bit scared, right and that they realize emotionally, what it means to not have access to clean water. Like that is it's it's a necessity. And it is a really terrifying feeling when you don't have it. And I think that I mean, maybe it's more of a hope. But these were smart kids and I do think that they will have gone back into the world and they see the struggles of other communities that aren't their own for clean water and for access to clean water. I think that they'll be able to connect on a more empathetic and more emotional level about what that struggle is about and how truly important water really is.
Most mornings, our group cook, Taylor, and I walked before the sun. I would perch myself on top of our truck facing east to watch the sunrise as I tried desperately to catch up on field notes. As I scribbled I would hear Taylor puttering around below me preparing breakfast. The first thing she would do was boil water for coffee. Then she would get out all the ingredients she needed that morning for breakfast, and make sure the coolers were drained of any ice that had melted overnight. Next she would take out the pans and set up all her tools around her including gloves, aluminum foil and gallon ziplock bags which were always needed. If it was an easy morning meal like pancakes, she would combine the mix and water and heat the pan just in time to have them ready when the kids were. But if she was serving a more complex breakfast like everybody's favorite breakfast burritos, it required frying up the potatoes she had cut and soaked the night before and scrambling eggs with sausage, pepper and onion while also heating up the tortillas. When it came to eating on the road, clearly the kids were well taken care of. Each day, one of them would be assigned as cook's assistant and help Taylor with lunch and dinner. But mostly it wasn't their responsibility to prepare food. It did however, change the way they consumed food. On the road trekkers and staff ate out of SS cups. These were small stainless steel bowls that the whole meal would be piled into whether it was chili and salad, tacos, or anything else. The SS Cup was paired with the spoon, the only utensil since anything technically can be done with a spoon. This may not seem like a big change, but considering how socialized eating norms are learning to eat this way took some getting used to. Eating on the road took flexibility. One couldn't expect a plate, bowl, fork, spoon, and knife if the dishes were being washed at a middle basin with sacrificed drinking water. While backpacking though, especially towards the end of the summer, Taylor did give the kids more responsibility when it came to preparing food. It was particularly important to her that they learned how to use the Whisperlite stoves. These backpacking stoves were fueled by white gas and were light and easy to carry while backpacking. They were however difficult to get used to. It was important to know how to properly clean, fix, and use them if there was going to be any hot food out in the back country. The flame that came out of these stoves could be rather unpredictable. Although there was an aluminum sheet to protect from the wind, it could be scary when the flames seem to get out of control. Part of cooking in the back country was understanding the risks of fire. Our group was lucky in that we didn't hike anywhere with fire restrictions that forbade camping stoves. But many of the Cottonwood Gulch groups that summer had to eat their backpacking food cold, all summer long. Fire, its usefulness combined with its danger, reminded folks that they were connected not only to the immediate ecosystem, but to the climate as well. The condition of the climate, in this case drought, affected everything down to whether or not they'd be able to warm the beans they put in their stomachs out there. Even if they didn't have to prepare it themselves, the kids were very close to the food they ate. While they were backpacking. They had to carry all the food they would eat on their backs and help Taylor get a steady flame going if they wanted it warm. Being on trek made clear that food didn't just appear out of nowhere. It was crucial to both their emotional and physical well being and making it depended on many different forms of energy.
[54:17] MM: It seems like at Cottonwood Gulch, that social and economic factors weren't really at play in influencing the environmental precarity of campers. I know we talked a little bit about that before. But would you agree that kind of in this situation, those things were kind of set aside to like the immediacy of the environmental precarity. I guess what I'm getting at here or trying to get at is that environmental precarity in other communities or with other groups is often impacted by social and economic factors as well. It's not just that there's environmental things at play their social background or economic background also influences their vulnerability to the environment.
[54:57] AMM: I think that there was there was a bit of an equalizer, right? Like, no matter where you came from, if you were there on scholarship, or if you had your parents were paying full price for the program, regardless, you were all getting the same awesome food that Taylor was cooking for you in the morning, everyone was eating the same, everyone was eating the same way. So I think that there was like a certain equalizing aspect to being out there. But I mean, social and economic factors are never totally erased. Some kids have really nice backpacks that, you know, they fit that fit them perfectly, some kids were borrowing a backpack from someone that might not fit them the best, you know? Gear is a huge indicator of background, economic background in particular. So it's never gone entirely. But that shared experience, and the fact that everything that we provided for them was the same, regardless of where they came from, did have an equalizing effect.
[55:56] MM: I guess, what I found interesting about, you know, the food, story in particular, but also shelter, finding water, all of these things was that there was like an access of knowledge or access to knowledge of survival skills that was provided to the campers. I think, had they've been out there alone, their situation would have been more precarious. And I think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like that kind of created a bit of a boundary between them and the environment. The knowledge that the staff brought to those excursions created a boundary of kind of a safe space in your camp and a safe space, kind of more conceptually, of like, we know that we have food, we know that we're going to be able to find water, and that as they learned more about that they were able to take part in the making of that space as well, and the making of that boundary.
[56:46] AMM: Yeah, that's interesting, I hadn't really thought about that that way, before. We kind of did provide a buffer between them and like the danger or the, you know, the vulnerability to the environment, for sure. And as you know, that that buffer kind of went away more and more the older that they got. So obviously, with the littlest ones, there's a huge buffer that is provided, this like pretty big, comfortable boundary between them and the environment provided by the staff. The youngest kids in the program were 10. And then as they get older, that kind of shrinks a little bit and my group was one of the one of the older groups, but not the oldest. The final group, the oldest group, they have a night actually, that I talked about in my thesis but didn't really get into here, that's their solo. It's a rite of passage type situation where you... having spent a night alone is a way to have to kind of earn a certain status and the oldest kids were expected to do one solo night before they left camp. You see the boundary that is created by the staff members from the environment just completely erased, right and it's kind of now you are part of it. And now you you have the responsibility for yourself, by yourself. But as you know, we've been talking about not by yourself.
[58:03] MM: But I think in that situation, they would have been there, you know, presumably for a few years or have done this more than once. So they would, I would hope being out there alone would kind of have that knowledge to to actively create that boundary for themselves.
[58:20] AMML Or I don't know, if I've creating the boundaries, is really the goal. I think the idea is like being able to understand your connection to all of these different things in order to like, know how to be a part of it, right, because like the idea of being out there, and like, part of what I'm trying to get at is that you understanding how connected you are and how that boundary between you and like, what we're calling the wilderness or nature, as a construct doesn't actually exist, right. So now, when these older kids have gotten to a point, hopefully, where they know that they they understand their connections, and they understand that that boundary is not there, and they need to understand these connections in order to successfully be alone out there for, for what in this situation is only a night, but what we're hoping in the future will be lots of time spent alone. Later.
[59:12] MM: I feel like when you said that the boundary doesn't exist, I think that's, that's really interesting, because you know, as anthropologists talk a lot about separating nature out from ourselves and from, you know, culturally created spaces, I still feel like in the situation that having that knowledge does allow you to create, like, you're still interconnected, but it does allow you to have like, a bit of a sense of control over your vulnerability to the environment through knowledge. Because you understand, you know, you know what to bring, and you understand how to prepare it safely. And if you didn't, you would be a lot more vulnerable. And so I feel like there is still like a bit of a boundary there between yourself and these external forces that you're connected to and working within. But to keep yourself safe, having that knowledge creates a bit of a boundary between you and that.
[60:09] AMM: I think you're right like that, you know, that bringing food from outside and like having camping gear with them, clearly, there's still a boundary, protecting them, I guess. But I think that it's more the thinking the way that they're thinking about is what I mean by the boundaries being taken down. They're not unsafe, sure, they have like this protection. But them feeling like there is a this huge separation between them as a human and the environment around them as "the environment", I do think that once you understand how to be safe out there and understand how to respect and use the space around you and the different objects and creatures around you properly, then you you feel a little bit more a part of it.
[60:52] MM: So maybe the goal, or one of the goals of those excursions or even going out as a group would be to kind of deconstruct that boundary.
[61:03] AMM: Yeah. And I think that that's kind of like mostly what I what I am trying to get at here is that there is this boundary, and that boundary is always going to be there, I don't think we can totally get away from it. But there is a certain deconstruction of that boundary happening all the time. The better you understand how to situate yourself within this network of interrelated beings and things, the less clear the boundary becomes.
[61:27] MM: I did still want to ask you about the portion about how they were eating and how that changed. If we're kind of connecting, you know, access to food and eating as you know, part of their vulnerability, or precarity. In this situation, like, why was how they were eating included in that conversation.
[61:45] AMM: Yeah, I mean, I included that because as you can tell from like the amazing meals that were served to them most of the time, they weren't particularly in a precarious situation, when it comes to food. Like they were going to be fed, they would be eating, and most of the time eating very well. But there's something to be said for shaking up the way that you do something. It was interesting to me how hard it was for some of them to get used to only having a spoon. They didn't understand how they're supposed to eat their salad with a spoon. And I'd have to be like, "Yeah, sometimes they'll lettuce is gonna fall off your spoon. But that's fine. It's gonna be fine." Food and the way that we eat is a really entrenched thing. You know, like, I don't think that we really think about how how used to our food practices we are and how big of part of who we are that is. And so having that shaken up and having to eat in a different way, made them think more about the food that they were eating. So they might not have felt precarious in the fact that they were going to be eating they always knew that they were going to be eating, but they they were destabilized a little bit in having to eat differently.
[62:54] MM: I think even if we're thinking about non-human things that affected them, and we've talked a lot about the environment and you know, water, food, those sorts of things. But I think it's interesting to think about destabilization from the perspective that bowl being maybe a material that they're not used to eating out of also, like something more comfortable probably would have been ceramic or plastic. Steel is a very stark and cold type of material. So I think it's interesting to think about how that might have impacted their experience as well.
[63:23] AMM: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it is it is... It's practical material it is like it's one that you can wash really easily. It's one that's not going to break while you're it's like clanking around in your backpack, but it's not exactly home-y. But by the end it was, and I think that that was a really big part of like their re socialization into a particular way of being and interacting with their objects and the objects that were supporting them all this way.
Hiking among the Aspen trees was a magical experience for our group. It was beautiful wandering down a path with great white trunks shooting up into the sky all around. Aspen's became many of the kids favorite tree by the end of the backpack in the la Sal's. But when it came to hanging a bear bag, they were less than ideal. On our group's first night that backpacking trip, we had to sleep in a dense Aspen grove. Tori had been looking for a place to set up camp for some time, but it was getting dark and we needed to get settled. When it came time for me to collect the food and hang the bear bags, I looked up and realize that the lowest branches of the Aspen's were way up in the sky. There was no way I would be able to get the rope over them. I had to hike out quite a bit bushwhacking my way through until I found a young Aspen with the lower branches. The next morning, I went out to collect the bags before the trekkers woke up so that Taylor could begin preparing breakfast. I balanced on a fallen log on my way out to avoid having to cut through the underbrush again. But when I headed back with the heavy bag in my arms, it was more difficult to balance. I slipped and my foot went down through the brush and into a rotting log. Then suddenly I was in sharp pain on multiple points in my body. The pain registered first and then I realized that I was being attacked by Hornets. I dropped the bag and ran as fast as I could sitting down on another log when they had stopped chasing me and called for Tori and Taylor. When we thought the Hornets had probably settled down, Taylor went to collect the bag because Tori was very allergic to bees. As she sat there with me, Tori and I realized how lucky we were that it had been me who had gone to retrieve the bag. If she had stepped on the hornet's nest, the group would have had to evacuate immediately. Tired, I had moved brashley through the brush. It was an important reminder that we were not alone in the forest, and that our experience relied heavily on our respect for and understanding of the creatures around us. There was a fine line between respect and fear. Tori, Taylor and I decided not to tell the kids about my Hornet experience. We knew we would be doing quite a bit of bushwhacking that day and we didn't want them paralyzed with fear. Instead, we made sure to overstate the importance of avoiding rotten logs. But in the moments when the kids were aware of certain dangers, fear was an interesting emotion to manage. Teaching them how to responsibly straddle the spine between fear and respect, fear and fascination, was an important part of teaching them about their position in the world out there. On our very first night together, the kids came across a rattlesnake as they explored our campsite. They called out to staff who calmly told them it was no big deal and to just walk back to the fire. This would probably not be the last time they encountered a rattlesnake or other dangerous animal, and it was important that they deal with the situation properly. None of them answered though, and they all continued to stare at the snake huddled together. The way they were clinging together and made them look afraid, but their faces told a different story. They were all both scared and fascinated. Tori had to tell them to get away from the snake again, more urgently this time. This combination of emotions was a common reaction to animals. Renegotiating relationships with animals was an important part of the kids learning at Cottonwood Gulch. Animals were a reality, which was a good thing. They were a part of the wildlife that participants cherished. But their existence in these spaces and the relationships with the kids was different than domestic animal relationships. They could do harm. Hornets and rattlesnakes would bite and bears could eat all of the food or worse. Wanting to be in the spaces in which the animals lived meant learning how to understand their presence. Too much fear would mean never stepping foot in these spaces. Not enough fear meant harm. If Cottonwood Gulch wanted kids to be out there in the desert, they had to learn how to straddle this line.
[67:41] MM: So this renegotiation, I guess of the campers, relationships to animals really resonated with me as like I've talked about my work in remote areas, but it's always been with adults. So I can imagine that that line of you know, being fearful to the point of inaction versus being aware in a way that keeps you safe was really difficult to manage with kids. I find it difficult to manage with adults. Was that a difficult experience for you?
[68:08] AMM: Yeah, especially because we wanted them to be interested in the animals, like we wanted them to care about them, and we wanted them to learn about them. Animals are a big part of what we were doing and what is so beautiful about the desert. It's just that, particularly in the desert, animals can be really dangerous. We had a lot of staff members who were very good at catching rattlesnakes, and knew how to like, maybe catch a rattlesnake and put it in a bucket for kids to look at for a little bit, and then release it somewhere else. So there, there was a lot of figuring out how to best show these animals to the kids and have them experience them, while also making sure that they knew how to properly act.
[68:51] MM: Thinking about the animals really made me think back again to the wildfires, because I think it's kind of a good comparison of vulnerability, because I feel like for it with animals, there's a certain level of control because you can you can understand how animals act, you can understand what precautions to take. But something like an environmental or natural disaster like wildfire, you can be careful not to start one, but once there's one there, you basically have to leave, you can't set up a caution to you know, make a wildfire go around you. So I was just wondering if you could talk maybe a little bit more about vulnerability. I know, I know, we have talked about it a lot through this. But what factors do you think made the campers more or less vulnerable, kind of day to day with the danger of wildlife compared to like a larger scale impact of a wildfire.
[69:38] AMM: The thing is that we could teach them how to deal with animals like for the reasons that you just said, there are precautions that you can take against animals, and there are things you can do, you can hang a bear bag, and there's nothing you can do really about a fire. Fear of fire was real. It was really intense. Just because we were in the middle of the drought of a drought in the middle of the desert, during climate change time. And fire was a constant, it was something we were always thinking about. It affected where we could go, it affected whether or not we'd be able to heat up our food, and it was something that we were always talking about also, because a lot of these kids didn't come from the desert, right. But the fact that we were tracking fire and the fact that there were fires going on the entire summer, just not necessarily where we were made them aware that they were out there and that they and that they were happening. And I think being able to think abstractly about that danger, the ability to understand that there was like this danger out there that just existed and that we had to constantly be thinking about and constantly had to deal with, I think kind of helped them also think about dangers in the abstract in that way too. Because when we when you think about climate change, less than less, we're starting to feel it more directly now, but you do have to think about it in a pretty abstract way as like this thing that is out there that is bad and happening and that we have to deal with and we need to like mediate that we need to be thinking about very seriously. But that we might that might not necessarily be affecting us right now. I think that learning to think that way about abstract environmental dangerous in the context of the fire was was really important.
[71:15] MM: It's kind of interesting, that maybe that that is changing a little bit because we're being exposed to it more because my like, initially, I would have thought that, you know, wildlife would have been a major concern for them. I guess if there's active wildfires, that's always going to be in the back of your mind. But I guess my conception, reading this was that, you know, wildlife would have been a big concern for kids who weren't, who weren't necessarily maybe used to seeing wildlife around them all the time. So it's interesting that, you know, that might be changing to things that are a bit more larger scale.
[38:47] AMM: But I think that that had to do a lot with the staff, right, like, so we did teach them they were they were probably more scared about wildlife at the beginning, then they were about the fires, but throughout, having hopefully successfully taught them how to deal with animals and how to think about the fact that animals existed out there. By the end of the summer, they had seen that the staff weren't afraid of animals, the staff were afraid of fire. And I think that we didn't, our concern about fire was clear. And I think that we did that also on purpose. It's something that you need to know to be concerned about. And so I think that there is something to be said for being shown through example, what the real dangers are. Yeah, rattlesnakes are dangerous, avoid them. Walk away when you see one, but mostly, drought and fire is what we're going to be worried about now.
[72:39] MM: So really, all the boundaries we've talked about here are between the self and everything else.
[72:45] AMM: Yeah, I mean, I definitely don't have time to really go into the boundaries of the self still, although I would love to. But I do think that looking at the separation of the self from the environment is important for understanding what I'm talking about.
[73:00] MM: That separation, self and environment is one that's talked about a lot in anthropology.
[73:05] AMM: Yes, it is. And here I think it’s most useful to look at “ecologies of life” as an alternative to the self/environment divide. Timothy Ingold discusses how focusing on the synergy between organism and environment can bring us back to genuine ecology of life. For him, the dichotomy between the two isn’t useful because the individual and its environment are constantly reacting to one another, creating one another. So while textbook ecology can sometimes make the classic equation of organism plus environment, Ingold says that a proper ecological approach thinks more about the whole organism in its environment.
[73:40] MM: Could this be related to the idea of entanglement?
[73:42] AMM: Yeah, it could, but I’m hesitant to use that term because it does seem appropriate for looking at the way the participants at Cottonwood Gulch were dependent on the beings that were part of their experience, but in my understanding of the term entanglement, in order for things to be entangled they have to be able to look back at one another, as Donna Haraway would say. I hesitate to talk about the relationships formed at Cottonwood Gulch in terms of entanglement because because not all of the “others” I’m discussing were alive. The tarps didn’t “look back”, for example.
[74:13] MM: But using Ingold’s argument for ecologies of life, you can talk about how the streams, the tarps, the kids, the bear bags, all of that, was part of the participants’ environment at Cottonwood Gulch.
[74:24] AMM: Right. I think Ingold would say that they were inseparable from the participants themselves. If we want to use entanglement, we can say that the kids were entangled with these things in the way that all more-than-human ecologies are entangled. To be disentangled from these objects would have been fatal, honestly. Part of what Cottonwood Gulch was teaching was how vital these relationships are to survival.
[74:45] MM: So the kids had to understand that their survival was dependent on a really large network.
[74:50] AMM: Yeah. But I do want to point out the privilege of being in this program in a similar way to pointing out the difference between precariousness and precarity. Cottonwood Gulch did everything it could to make sure that the kids didn’t actually come into harm’s way. Even though the kids experienced and learned from a feeling of precarity, their situation wasn’t actually precarious. Still, Cottonwood Gulch helped them become aware of the effect that environmental factors have. It helped them understand the importance of their positions within this network of relationships differently, and I think that’s really important work. As climate change and shifting environmental conditions put more and more people into states of environmental precarity, real environmental precarity, understanding humanity’s general precariousness will play an important part in trying to find a balance in learning to care for a changing world and the people in it.
[75:43] MM: I think that’s a great note to end on. That’s it for this week.
[75:54] AMM: This episode was produced by me, Alejandra Melian, with help from Meghan McGill. Music by Justin Cober, cover art by Sofia Melian.
[76:05] MM: Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe, and come Talk Culture with us on Twitter @talkculturepod or Instagram @talkculturepodcast or check out our website talkingculture.ca to hear more from the McGill anthro community or to submit your own soundscape. Anthropology is the science of turning over tea tables.
[76:40] end of episode