Air-raids, looting, oral histories–and a lesson about Wikipedia

In Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik’s excellent book about his time as an American living in Paris, he has a chapter on how French people whom he interviewed (he’s a writer for the New Yorker) simply didn’t understand the concept of a fact-checker. He writes, tongue firmly in cheek, that a French equivalent to the New Yorker would have not a fact checker but a theory checker. A fact checker, of course, calls back interviewees and makes sure that the reporter has all of his or her facts correct. A theory checker, Gopnik suggests, would make sure that the theory held up–and the facts are only secondary.

As I hinted in a comment to my post last week, I have a correction to make about the substance to my post about oral history and scripts, but like Gopnik’s hypothetical French magazine writer, my theory, at least, holds up. Herein lies a tale of the historical research process, of how people remember things, of looting and — perhaps most relevant to most blog readers — why Wikipedia is dangerous. I’ll explain after the jump. It’s long, but there’s a picture!

Greetings from the scrub

For the past six months I’ve been working as an avian ecology intern at a vibrant, wonderful biological station in (not so vibrant, wonderful) south-central Florida. In exactly one week I’ll be packing up all my stuff and driving a thousand miles home to prepare for a conference and, following that, the move to Durham. This timeline has been set since I accepted the position; the strange thing is that I now find myself thinking in circles whenever I consider the amount of time I’ve been here. On one hand, the tasks I was charged with completing in March and April and May seem like ancient history. Moreover, the level of familiarity I’ve achieved with the study site and 250+ Florida Scrub-Jays within it is a testament to the months I’ve spent in the field. On the other hand: Um, didn’t I just get here? Where did March and April and May go? It takes flipping through my journal and perusing several files of photos to convince myself that I was, in fact, alive and conscious for the past half year – not only that, but working 10 hours a day to track this population of bold, spunky birds during the entirety of their breeding season. Yet I truly struggle to accept the length of time I’ve been here.

I think a principal reason for that struggle – which is a shared sentiment, judging from the “Can you believe how fast it’s been?” exchanges with other interns – lies in the repetitiveness inherent in data collection and processing. It’s a singular mentality manifesting itself during each field job I’ve held; individual days are rendered meaningless as we conduct the same activities hour after hour to compile a massive amount of data. Then all of a sudden, a month or two or five are gone, and the sole proof of their passage is in the arbitrary list of dates written in our field books and official files.

For the majority of the season, my days revolved entirely around deciphering scrub-jay behavior to find and monitor nests, punctuated by population censuses and trapping of unbanded birds. Life was defined by nest searches, nest checks, chick ages and the absence of weekends (jays don’t have them, so why should we?). When nesting activity wound down in late May, we switched gears to working on our required independent projects, whereupon I conducted the same experiments for one month straight before embarking on number-crunching and writing. Up next week are furious draft revisions and Powerpoint creations, the final presentation on Thursday, and departure on Friday. And…scene. That’s it?

I’ve been dwelling on the time issue lately, because witnessing the speed with which my internship flew by makes me apprehensive that my 20s will be summed up in a box of field books and spreadsheets. (I blame this illustration for the “aaagh!” moment.) But even as I write this post, I know on some level my worries are unfounded, since anyone reading this blog probably doesn’t take his/her education too passively. The best assurance I have is my fortune to be specializing in one of the topics I most enjoy and to be doing so among the brightest academic community I could ask for. That, and when “work” is loosely defined as “testing behavioral hypotheses by playing games with birds (plus stopping to look at cool things along the way),” all those hours in the field are worth it. Go figure, I can actually earn a degree doing this!

–Irene L.

A male Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) perching on my ATV and being ridiculously tame.

Nineteen days old and ready to jump ship…

Dispatches from a bar in The Hague, The Netherlands, international city of peace, justice, and other warm-fuzzies we love

I can’t say my summer job lends itself as easy to parody as Nicola’s (an excellent post). I have spent the past month and a half now (on USP money, thanks, Tori) doing sundry research and consulting on justice sector development and international criminal liability (the sexy stuff). The gruntwork of international justice, the database I’ve been creating on justice sector development projects in post-conflict countries, I’ll leave aside, though if anyone’s keen on that, email me. I’ve been working on a consulting project for a senior ICC trial lawyer who at one point headed up the Darfur investigations, mostly conducting research on criminal liability for corporations. Apparently this is A Big Issue in research on and jurisprudence of contemporary international criminal liability. And it actually has Real World Repercussions…exciting, I know. This post starts off discussing recent developments in the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor (currently in The Hague) and how they relate to the research I’ve been doing on corporate criminal liability for my job. In a crisis of soap-opera proportions, replete with bruised egos, righteous indignation, and several wll-timed smack-downs, Taylor will finally be tried for war crimes occurring in Sierra Leone during under his leadership of a Liberian rebel group and its collusion with the Sierra Leonean Revolutionary United Front. He initially failed to appear for his own trial, fired his defense, decided he would defend himself, and ended up saying that, no, in fact, he’d rather have the best defense team that money can buy. (Which, apparently, will include the former ICC trial lawyer for whom I was doing research. To put it flippantly, it’s a small world. Bizarre).  Also bizarre is the finding that Charles Taylor is indigent, meaning that he is not financially able to pay for his own defense. Say what now? What about all of the gains he made through the money skimmed from contracts with the Oriental Timber Company and diamond dealing? The overseas bank accounts? This is where the corporate criminal liability issue comes into play. To what extent can a corporation (such as, Shell Oil, Chiquita, Anvil Mining) be held liable for involvement in war crimes? Who is “at fault”? Is it the directors? The workers? This thing called the “corporation”? Which national legal systems get first dibs on trials? What happens in the event of a conviction? What about the premise of individual guilt? Is criminal and/or civil prosecution a viable tool in the push to end a culture of corporate impunity? Chiquita (motto: “Perfect for Life”), for example, has claimed in a civil suit that it only had the best interests of its fruit pickers in mind when it hired “security forces” who also happen to be paramilitaries who have murdered and otherwise intimidated Colombians in the area of Chiquita operations.  These are not ‘obvious cases’ like the Zyklon B Case, in which Bruno Tesch, was convicted of war crimes in providing the Nazi regime with the gas used to kill (Tesch claimed he didn’t know it was going to be used to gas inmates…but rather he cited the innocuous and “well-known use” of Zyklon B as a pesticide against lice! That defense was shut down, however, due to evidence that he had ordered tests of the gas on Russian POWs. Geez, officer, I had no idea…). That’s what makes the concept so tricky—in a world in which multinational corporations necessarily bridge many different national justice systems and operate through bureaucracies of middle men, at what point is it logical and appropriate to assign blame to a corporate entity for breaches of international humanitarian law? Corporate criminal liability as a theoretical concept is a moving target, and since the Nuremberg Trials, it has played out in contradictory and fragmented ways. I had been asked to research its parameters for a pilot training and consulting program being developed by several international lawyers. And after writing a thesis length report that tries to define the concept and whether or not it can be used to persuade businesses to comply with international humanitarian law, I feel like I’m aiming darts at stampeding buffalo.  

–Claire L.

Talking Shop

Recently I was inspired to write something compelling about my summer job, before I remembered that there is nothing compelling about it. Nonetheless I forged ahead, for when push comes to shove (usually around 3 P.M.), there is something within me bigger than myself*, something which will always drive me, against all odds, to make stuff up.

Being a summer gig, mine has lasted only 2 1/2 months, but bear in mind this is equal to 387 Customer Service years. Customer Service (motto: “Smilingly Refunding Your Befouled Froot Loops Since 1805″) is my position at a major New England grocery chain that, in the interest of artfully veiling its identity, I will refer to only as “Scarf ‘n’ Barf, the major New England grocery chain”.

Don’t get me wrong. As Customer Service, I have had the opportunity to perform numerous vital functions, such as:

1) Taking back fetid seafood,
2) Taking back REALLY fetid seafood,
3) Announcing over the speaker to various managerial beings with names like “Stan” that they have a call on “405,”
4) Directing customers to the restrooms, and
5) If restrooms are full, directing customers to the Fresh Maine Lobster tank.

I suppose one could argue that some of the exigencies involved in my job would serve as valuable exercises for those with severe antisocial tendencies. Unfortunately, these I do not have.** Not to toot my own horn, but as a 14-year-old in Florida, I trod the boards as Maisie in what was scientifically proven, in extensive laboratory tests, to be the world’s worst production of The Boy Friend***. This was before a nightly audience of 475 senior citizens bused in against their will, such that 474 were justifiably disgruntled about missing Wheel of Fortune, and the other one (Lester) was asleep.

Still, early on in my current gig, I tried to convince myself it would serve as excellent practice for more advanced theatrical endeavors down the road. Think the scene in Hamlet where Hamlet informs Stan (official title: Perishable Manager****) that he has a call on 405. But this is not how things turned out.

My job takes place behind the Customer Service Desk, which I originally thought was a sensory deprivation chamber, but it is in fact so much more. It turns out my work area is filled with the odorless, colorless Rapid Neural Degeneration Gas (RNDG), the likes of which not even the presence of an adjacent Starbucks can combat. I present my evidence in the form of this authentic transcript (sponsor: Pedigree) of my cerebral trajectory during work:

Typical thought 5 minutes into work: Of course! The definitive cure for cancer is painfully obvious! It’s (THOUGHT INTERRUPTED BY CUSTOMER WISHING TO CASH “BINGO MANIA” LOTTERY TICKET).

Typical thought 10 minutes into work: Why do customers act as if signing up for a Scarf ‘n’ Barf Rewards Card is a major milestone in their lives? Is it a major milestone in their lives? IS IT???!!!

Typical thought 15 minutes into work: Hey! That girl over there is a girl like I’M a girl!

(Curiously, my coworker, the Evil Presence, thrives in the presence of RNDG. But then the Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks issue is also a major source of turbulence in her weltanschauung.)

So I am eager to leave my job, and not just because it could be performed with equal finesse by — and I say this as a Loyal Member of Your Scarf ‘n’ Barf Team — the Fresh Maine Lobster. I am eager to come to Duke, and not just because of the myriad, unparalleled intellectual opportunities that await me there. These eagernesses stem from a much weightier, more intricate issue, which I shall call, for lack of a euphemism, “my Scarf ‘n’ Barf shirt”. This garment has the same general appearance and consistency as a shroud, but less sex appeal.

So, needless to say, my mental state has been such of late as to render me unable to create anything nutritive (or non-phlegm-based), but I have learned Core Values, such as The Core Value of How To Receive Your Paycheck. Also, it has given me an idea for my own grocery store, where you would never have to smile at anybody or take back anything, and could basically just be an evil bitch. I even picked out a name for it. The Evil Bitch Grocery Store.

I realize this missive has smacked of negativity, rather in the same way the Kalahari smacks of sand. So I should close by reiterating how much I am really, really looking forward to coming to Duke and meeting you. Who knows, I may even smile at you. But try and make me take back your Froot Loops. C’mon. Make me.

*It’s a chromosome. If you stretched it out it would reach to the moon.
**Or I didn’t, until I started this job. Coincidence? You decide.
***It is documented that several scientists contracted herpes merely by sitting it out through Act I.
****Nobody else thinks this is funny.

© 2007, Nicola M. (aka Customer S.)

Scripts, memory, war, and disaster

I seem to be the only one posting on this Uni blog, but I don’t want to dominate things. Let me start by encouraging others to post comments on previous posts and to make posts of their own, of any variety and any length. I and others would like to hear what you’re doing, thinking, reading, and watching over the summer. I’ve been posting a lot because being basically alone in Canada, I don’t have people to bounce ideas off of, so I especially encourage you to respond to my posts and tell me what you think. (Note: you don’t have to log in to post a comment.)

Last week, I spent most of my time in the archives reading oral histories of the Halifax Explosion. In the mid and late 1980s, Janet Kitz, the most prolific of the local historians of the disaster, conducted 177 interviews of survivors–at that point, mostly old women who were younger than 25 or so at the time. I was reading these to get a sense of what people and organizations mobilized to provide aid, relief, comfort, and support in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

I ran into some problems of memory, and this is where I hope fellow Unis can help me, since oral histories and its problems touch on questions of neurology, psychology, ethnography, and narratology. I am eager and sincere in my request for comments and help, so please read past the jump and let me know what you think.

Thoughts about empire

In the introduction to Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico, author Laura Briggs goes on something of a tangent about the constitutional status of Puerto Rico vis-a-vis the United States. Mainland liberals, she writes, are often confused about why Puerto Ricans seem satisfied with free association, the colonial status they have currently. Liberals, she writes, imagine that Puerto Ricans should prefer either independence or statehood, and probably independence. Yet in multiple referendums (the freeness of which are highly debatable), voters have chosen the status quo. She posits that this is because Puerto Ricans understand the breadth of American Empire far more than Mainland citizens can. They understand, she says, that all people in the Western Hemisphere–indeed, around the world–are to some extent a part of the American Empire. As long as they are, Briggs’s Puerto Ricans figure, better to get the advantages of Free Association–citizenship, tax breaks favoring industrial development–than not. In other words, better to be colonized Puerto Rico, collecting on the obligations the Mainland U.S. takes on, than to be theoretically independent Mexico, still under American control but without any formal obligation.

Today on the blog I want to interrogate this idea using Canada as an example of a still different relationship with the United States. Two things got me thinking about this: the Conrad Black trial I mentioned in my earlier post, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s continuing trip to South America and the Caribbean. I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts on this from their own studies, experiences, and travels. Please comment on this entry or write your own!

More on Polaris

(Updated to include more articles and context.)

By the way, lest you think that only blog commenters are interested in the region of the Polaris nominees, look at the coverage in the National Post and the The Toronto Star, both based in Toronto, and both of which highlight the Montreal-centered list. Meanwhile, the StarPhoenix in Saskatoon simultaneously highlights the regionalism while trying to discount it.

That said, as this commentary from the CBC and this one from Toronto’s EyeWeekly shows, there are other criticisms too, starting with the uniformity of genre. And that’s true. Basically, this year is all indie rockers (although Julie Doiron is pretty folky), which comes in stark contrast to last year’s list, which included some hip-hop (K’naan and Cadence Weapon), some folk (Sarah Harmer), some mildly electronica-ish rock (Metric), and the challenging, arty, and terrific Final Fantasy (the final winner). (Last year’s list was also more geographically balanced and included Francophone act Malajube, which is often heralded as the first Francophone band to break out into Anglophone Canada.)

It’s probably worth pointing out that given the way Polaris works (a larger jury of music critics submit a list of five choices each, and then the top ten vote-getters are shortlisted) some of these complaints are merely sour grapes. The band I included in my top five didn’t get selected. This is probably made more so by the fact that the jury discusses while they’re making their top-five lists.

Greetings from the Explosion City

After a splendid, two-week vacation in China and some time recuperating from having a wisdom tooth extracted, I’m now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I spend my says (six of them a week), in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. I’m going through a sample of around 14,000 files about families that applied for aid after an enormous explosion in 1917. The explosion, which killed around 2000 people, was the largest human-caused explosion until Hiroshima (although that’s a rather silly thing to say, since “largest explosion” doesn’t actually have very much meaning).

A friend of mine–at the time, I was living in France and he in England–once described a theory of expat experience to me. He suggested that when Americans go to country that speaks a foreign language, they expect things to be different, and so their time there is spent becoming more and more aware of how much the same things are. In contrast, when Americans go abroad to Anglophone countries, they expect things to be roughly the same, and so they spend their time there discovering how different things are in each country. I’m not actually sure he’s right, but in any case, one of the things frequent or long-term American visitors to Canada have to think about is how and whether Canada is particularly different from the US. (Those of us who study Canada, of course, could be said to study this as our jobs.) Here are three pieces of news that Canadians are talking about that help describe the difference, or not, between the Canada and “the Republic to the South.”

The Cube

What I’ve noticed most about working in a cubicle is the twin feelings of claustrophobia and vulnerability.  The claustrophobia is no doubt the natural result of spending 9 hours a day in a 7’ by 7’ box chained to a computer and the beck and call of a silly program called Microsoft Entourage. The vulnerability that often characterizes both a deer caught in the headlights and the modern cubicle worker, however, is not a feeling that one would expect from such a small space. The clever architects of this very geometrical world must have known that the feeling of being watched is a strong motivating factor. Hence, a cubicle that is not quite a cube: I seem to be missing a back wall to shield me (and my activities) from the wandering eye of any passerby. And, of course, my computer is positioned at the precise angle to attract as much attention as possible.  This must be how a fish in a barrel must feel, except instead of dreading uncertain death, I only fear more paperwork, more paper cuts, and more unquenched boredom.

—Cubicle Girl

Travels with Charlie

I recently returned to the city of my birth, Boston, Massachusetts.

In Boston, purchase of one CharlieCard allows one to reuse and recharge fares for using the MBTA, whose rail system is more commonly known at “the T.”

The card’s name harkens to a song called “The M.T.A. Song“, more commonly known as “Charlie on the M.T.A.”  The protagonist of the story, a man named Charlie, was unable to get off the train because he did not have enough money to pay the exit fare that was then part of the complicated M.T.A. fare system.  The song was based on the 1865 folk song, “The Ship that Never Returned,” and was part of Progressive Party candidate Walter O’Brien’s run for mayor of Boston in 1948.  As part of his platform, O’Brien sought reform of the M.T.A. fare system.  In 1959, the American folk group The Kingston Trio had a hit with the resurrection of the song.

My family frequently sung this song on road trips, especially after we moved to New Jersey and would return to visit my relatives in Boston. I always felt so sorry for poor Charlie, stuck underground forever. I felt like my existence almost paralleled his, stuck seemingly forever in the car on the long ride north. 

-Tori L.