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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Close Encounters Part 1: Kony 2012

Hello world,

Yesterday and today, I wasn't as hard at work on my Los Angeles essay as I probably should have been. Instead, I attended a pretty great anthropology convention, thrown by St Andrews' own undergraduates called Close Encounters: Bringing Anthropology Home. The whole shindig was sponsored by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) but completely organized and orchestrated by a group of Social Anthropology undergrads, and I must say, they did quite a brilliant job.

I didn't attend every event, but I got to what I could with Peter as my sidekick. There was the "Opening Remarks" presented by the conference coordinator and the director of the RAI, immediately followed by a rather enlightening lecture entitled Kony 2012: Reopening Old Wounds. It was presented by Dr. Aloysius Malagala of Gulu University in Uganda and a PhD student at Keele University, Betty Okot. Ms. Okot had conducted field work in the Acholi area of northern Uganda–the area and ethnic group most affected by the violence of the rebellion. The paper criticized the Kony 2012 campaign for:
  • Releasing the viral Kony 2012 video five years after Kony's disappearance.
  • Ignoring the complexities of the conflict, including the history of Uganda's ethnic tensions, the displacement of the Acholi people by the Ugandan government, the origin of the rebellion, and the fact that Kony was a leader of one of many military splinter groups that formed during the rebellion.
  • Ignoring the land and cattle shortage issues the Acholi people are enduring as the aftermath of actions by both "sides" of the rebellion, if they could really be called sides. 
  • Using the plight of the Acholi people, none of whom were involved in the production process or content decisions, to raise upwards of $30,000,000, very little of which ended up reaching them. 
I wasn't a big fan of the video to begin with–the guy who made it came off as a little sociopathic to me, with the whole putting his just-out-of-toddlerdom son on the spot. I also resented seeing people on Facebook who had never been interested in activism call for vengeance for a man who had been missing for half a decade when there were more pressing matters to attend to for the people of Uganda. But who cares as long as it's all going towards helping people, right? 

This presentation was incredibly enlightening when it came to the history behind the conflict (neglected in the video) and what the people of Gulu thought of the video. In short, there were riots. In long form, a white "researcher" came into their community, asked them questions, recorded them, and ended up making a video they thought to be exploitative and opportunistic. Coming back to the title of the lecture, the video reopened old wounds of friends and family lost, home lost, and the neglect their community faced from the international community when their homes were actively under siege. Not only did the video do this–it also profited tremendously. And Invisible Children thought so much of the community that they did not involve them in the process.

Speaking of profit, I did some independent investigation after Ms. Okot mentioned that 60% of the money raised from the campaign went towards administration. I popped onto the Kony 2012 website and found that they made it quite difficult to access a breakdown of Invisible Children's spending. Plenty of breakdowns are given of costs for the Kony 2012 campaign, including a video production breakdown as well as an independent campaign breakdown. A repeated mantra throughout the report is that 81.48% of spending goes to "Programs."Finally, a breakdown of revenue spending arrives on page 76 of 86 of the financial report. Here we find that "Programs" includes the categories Media and Mobilization. These kinds of spending do not reach Uganda. They publish the website, they fund student conventions, and they fund what the report simply calls "Kony 2012," which cost more than $3 million–the clear plurality of all spending. Media and Mobilization make up the majority of "Programs" spending. Here's the link to the financial report, and if you're interested, I encourage you to check it out.

I suppose I'll conclude with a small appeal to anyone who may read this to be critical in their donation choices. Invisible Children does really great things when they do, but Reopening Old Wounds really brought their level of integrity to light. As one of Ms. Okot's informants asked (I paraphrase), If they are willing to use our pain to get money, what will they do when this money dries up? I doubt the people of Invisible Children will go raiding the countryside, but it is a compelling question. If an organization's goal is to help people, I think that it should probably drop some of the budget for fancy campaign videos and devote more to said people. It's the principal of the matter. Essentially, the Kony 2012 campaign spent over half of its revenue in making middle-class-and-up individuals feel a little better about themselves.

Another short point before I tumble into bed: Vengeance is nice sometimes. But the people most devastated by Kony's violence and the government response to Kony's violence (which lasted 20 years without intervention, incidentally) are, as we speak, trying to rebuild their lives. The pain of an entire generation will not disappear if/when a single psychopath is apprehended. The Kony 2012 campaign achieved its goal of making the man famous, but it let his victims be defined by nothing but his brutality. In the eyes of the Acholi who spoke with Ms. Okot, the campaign did little but to reaffirm their status as victims of atrocity. Why did the campaign look backwards more than forwards? 

These are some thoughts provoked by the first, YES, the first presentation of Close Encounters. Watch for more commentary on the presentations and also on my Los Angeles essay. More historical context that will turn your world on its head.

Oh, what anthropology can do...


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Radio Show

Today, my friends, I have a radio show.

Earlier this semester I decided to put my name in for one of the fifteen open slots, just in case anything came of it. I decided after I signed up to orchestrate a talk show that runs along the same lines as This American Life (an NPR show that is very dear to my heart), meaning I would have a theme or topic every week and go from there. There needn't be a category for the whole show, just as long as the topic was interesting, and preferably something people didn't know all that much about, or if it was, I would bring in people to chat on it.

Usually, the topic has been related to something in the news, although my favorite show was completely out-of-the-blue–an hour on three "Forgotten Inventors." Nikola Tesla, Leon Theremin, and Heddy Lamar. I brought my friend, Bridget, in to speak about Leon Theremin (she's a cellist, he was a cellist, voila), and it all turned out very well for a second radio show ever, if I do say so myself. My second favorite show was about HIV in response to the child in Georgia who may have been cured of HIV she contracted from her mother in-utero. It was just me that time, but I'd nabbed an interview with a lecturer at St Andrews who specializes in HIV anti-retroviral research, which was quite informative.

Today, I am going to talk about the situation in North Korea and the history and context that these threats are emerging from. When preparing for every show, I learn something I wouldn't have known otherwise, and this is definitely the case with this one. What a tricky country, North Korea is.

If you'd like to listen to my show, or any STAR (St Andrews Radio) show at all, here's the link. Soon, I'll be posting my recent shows to the same website in podcast form, I just need to edit out the music and plug in some open forum tunes instead.

Have a pleasant and productive day!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

I'm Back...

So this internship-finding website told me to start a blog. I told the screen I already had one. And the screen said nothing. And then I thought to myself, I could do with a wee entry right about now. Exciting things have happened, are happening, and will happen in the months surrounding now (and now, for that matter).

To begin with a boom, I got back from my spring break (Easter break, to all my non-yank friends), which was pretty much my Walkabout. This ceremonial coming-of-age journey, conveniently timed one week after my 18th birthday, consisted of travels to Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, a brief jaunt in Amsterdam, and, of course, Paris. It was... well... It was a pretty fantastic-unbelievable-beautiful experience. I was accompanied by Peter, my dear partner in crime, who I now hail as one who can get me to food before my transformation into an awesome and terrible beast of myth. He also just happens to be one of the best travel buddies.

Berlin was the favorite destination by far. It was a proper city. The place had trains, grit, bagels, and people of all shapes, sizes, and shades. Diversity was probably the most refreshing aspect of the trip as a whole (St Andrews isn't the most populated or colorful town), but my other city cravings really came out in Berlin. It was smart, and it had soul. I'm writing in complete intangibles, but city people will get me, I think.

Since my glorious return to this town by the sea, I've been mobbed by a host of tasks. I'm currently working on two essays, one for each of my courses; maintaining the radio show I started on STAR (St Andrews Radio); polishing my resume and applying for internships in Los Angeles; and reestablishing the writing habit on my book about my time in Kenya. I also feel the need to reboot the blog for personal reasons (my addiction to self-imposed responsibility, it's really unhealthy).

So there it be, the recent news. As for the coming week, I'll be mainly focusing on my essay for Anthropology of Migration. Dr. Fumanti, my awesome professor, let us choose our own essay topics, with no constraints except that it somehow relate to concepts discussed in class. This is a mixed blessing, but I chose to run along with it and write my essay on Los Angeles. And now that I've dug through material, the specific topic will have to do with environmental racism, urban development, and how these impacted on the formation of "Chicano identity." (Quotations allow for the stretch that any group can have a collective identity. HAH.)

This topic has led me through loads of literature on Los Angeles, and despite it all being about white racists and how the construction of Dodger Stadium displaced dozens of Mexican-American families with almost no compensation, it's really making me miss my city. More will be coming about the awful, amazing, wonderland that is Los Angeles, CA.

Until then, ta ta. :)