As I noted last month, I am partaking in summer pre-dissertation research in Chiapas, Mexico from the beginning of July to the end of August (Joe and I will be meeting up at the end of August in Costa Rica!)
I will do my best to provide updates on this blog when internet is available to me.
This trip is largely exploratory, put differently, I'm going to be learning a lot, and likely the hard way...
Wish me luck and look for a postcard in the mail ; )
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Garden Updates...and the year of the snail
This is going to sound
wrong, but I've been waiting for an overcast day to take photos of the garden...It's been so nice here...however, this morning dawned gray so I snapped some shots of the struggling garden.
I say struggling because we inadvertently cultivated a snail friendly environment over the winter by mulching with leaves and while it was a great strategy, and the beds overwintered nicely, we are now in our second round of planting, the first attempt having been decimated by snails and tiny slugs. After much research and some attempts at peaceful deterrence by Joe (read: marigolds and evening flashlight hunting and removal by bucket-loads), we are now onto the beer method, which I feel much less guilty about after having lost 3 rounds of pole beans, the entirety of our kale, kohlrabi and brussel sprout seedlings and watching the sugar snap peas suffer.
Blueberries and the magnolia (notice the new and amazing shining white garage door in the background)
The poppies have taken over...seriously. I planted one packet of seeds in between the artichokes and in the bed of the raspberries last year...they needed no help this year to get going (see all that orange...)
greenberries, soon to be blueberries
Little hop of horror (heh heh), the hops are also doing quite well:
Our first cherry from the bubala tree
my half milpa (just corn and sugar pumpkins, no beans), seedlings at the moment
The hops in all their glory
Summer raspberries (left) outstripping the fall ones (obscured by poppies)
Rhubarb still going strong
The first climber of the surviving pole beans (take three), the empty trellis looks so bad...
Much taller artichokes this year
the sedum stretching out...
A volunteer onion (I think) coming from under the neighbors fence in the backyard
Fava beans and tomatoes...the only thing the slugs and snails have left alone
Surviving cabbage and broccoli
Solstice garlic...everything seems to be running a little late this year, so I think these will stay in the ground a bit longer, they're just starting to produce their 'whips'
sugar snap peas....
I'll be anxious to see how things do while I'm away. I'm already missing the sugar snap peas....
What has been really amazing is to watch the perennials change year to year...and while I don't think it's quite come to a "clip show" phase, I do want to put the cherry tree in perspective...
[From left to right these photos were taken 02.21.2009 (original planting); 06.27.2009; 06.29.2010 (almost a year to the day from last summers growth)]:
wrong, but I've been waiting for an overcast day to take photos of the garden...It's been so nice here...however, this morning dawned gray so I snapped some shots of the struggling garden.
I say struggling because we inadvertently cultivated a snail friendly environment over the winter by mulching with leaves and while it was a great strategy, and the beds overwintered nicely, we are now in our second round of planting, the first attempt having been decimated by snails and tiny slugs. After much research and some attempts at peaceful deterrence by Joe (read: marigolds and evening flashlight hunting and removal by bucket-loads), we are now onto the beer method, which I feel much less guilty about after having lost 3 rounds of pole beans, the entirety of our kale, kohlrabi and brussel sprout seedlings and watching the sugar snap peas suffer.
Blueberries and the magnolia (notice the new and amazing shining white garage door in the background)
The poppies have taken over...seriously. I planted one packet of seeds in between the artichokes and in the bed of the raspberries last year...they needed no help this year to get going (see all that orange...)
greenberries, soon to be blueberries
Little hop of horror (heh heh), the hops are also doing quite well:
Our first cherry from the bubala tree
my half milpa (just corn and sugar pumpkins, no beans), seedlings at the moment
The hops in all their glory
Summer raspberries (left) outstripping the fall ones (obscured by poppies)
Rhubarb still going strong
The first climber of the surviving pole beans (take three), the empty trellis looks so bad...
Much taller artichokes this year
the sedum stretching out...
A volunteer onion (I think) coming from under the neighbors fence in the backyard
Fava beans and tomatoes...the only thing the slugs and snails have left alone
Surviving cabbage and broccoli
Solstice garlic...everything seems to be running a little late this year, so I think these will stay in the ground a bit longer, they're just starting to produce their 'whips'
sugar snap peas....
I'll be anxious to see how things do while I'm away. I'm already missing the sugar snap peas....
What has been really amazing is to watch the perennials change year to year...and while I don't think it's quite come to a "clip show" phase, I do want to put the cherry tree in perspective...
[From left to right these photos were taken 02.21.2009 (original planting); 06.27.2009; 06.29.2010 (almost a year to the day from last summers growth)]:
Thursday, June 24, 2010
When algorithims fail...
Google uses algorithms to display ads (in a very minimal way). When referencing a page of a book I do not currently have in my possession (I heart googlebooks), ads come up, very discreetly on the side of the page, I generally ignore them...
The book I was referencing just now "Lawn People" is a political ecology study of the lawn that questions why lawns have such power over people and why, despite a desire to be good ecological citizens, we pour billions of dollars into chemical lawn care each year....
whoopsie!
The book I was referencing just now "Lawn People" is a political ecology study of the lawn that questions why lawns have such power over people and why, despite a desire to be good ecological citizens, we pour billions of dollars into chemical lawn care each year....
whoopsie!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Soccer [blanks] the world
I still need to find out if Soccer Explains the World, but I'll tell you, today, I'd say it creates community throughout.
I heard the US score and advance this morning. Not because I was watching a gamecast, or listening to the play-by-play on the radio, but because I heard the cheer go up while sitting at my computer writing.
Die hard soccer fan or not, there's something about the World Cup...
I heard the US score and advance this morning. Not because I was watching a gamecast, or listening to the play-by-play on the radio, but because I heard the cheer go up while sitting at my computer writing.
Die hard soccer fan or not, there's something about the World Cup...
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Caution: may cause giddiness
I have recently undertaken acupuncture treatment, something I had been talking about with Joe for awhile, and then finally decided to do.
My conversations with Joe centered around alternative treatment more generally, but one of my questions in this context was whether an ancient treatment from China/Japan could be equally successful for people living in a different cultural context? Put differently, I wondered if the impact of acupuncture would be as dramatic for folks who did not have the same everyday life (read: diet, exercise, sleep patterns etc.) of the culture that the treatment was cultivated in?
At this point the question seems rather moot, I absolutely enjoy the treatment. Whether it can be a comprehensive preventative medicine is beside the point...I have never achieved such a relaxed state. Laying on my back on a table with needles sticking out of me brings the matrix to mind, perhaps, but after a few minutes my body/mind finds a place between waking and sleeping that is positively sublime.
Yesterday I walked to my midday appointment from campus, knowing full well I had to return to my office and finish my last paper of the term.
I didn't think about it once. In fact, I emerged from the office stifling giggles. I felt positively giddy.
My conversations with Joe centered around alternative treatment more generally, but one of my questions in this context was whether an ancient treatment from China/Japan could be equally successful for people living in a different cultural context? Put differently, I wondered if the impact of acupuncture would be as dramatic for folks who did not have the same everyday life (read: diet, exercise, sleep patterns etc.) of the culture that the treatment was cultivated in?
At this point the question seems rather moot, I absolutely enjoy the treatment. Whether it can be a comprehensive preventative medicine is beside the point...I have never achieved such a relaxed state. Laying on my back on a table with needles sticking out of me brings the matrix to mind, perhaps, but after a few minutes my body/mind finds a place between waking and sleeping that is positively sublime.
Yesterday I walked to my midday appointment from campus, knowing full well I had to return to my office and finish my last paper of the term.
I didn't think about it once. In fact, I emerged from the office stifling giggles. I felt positively giddy.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Summer Research
So, I received some polite stares from friends over Memorial Day weekend when I explained what I was up to this summer. I realize that I have not been particularly forthcoming about my plans, part of it was because I wanted to be able to announce my funding and explain the trip, but didn't want to be too precipitous. So.....
I have received funding for graduate student summer research from the Center for Latin@ and Latin American Studies and from the Center on Diversity and Community to conduct pre-dissertation research in Chiapas, Mexico for two months this summer.
I leave on the 1st of July. I will arrive in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas State and make my way east to San Cristobal de las Casas, where I will spend some time at CIESAS Sureste.
Following that I will be in the southeast of Chiapas, adjacent to (and sometimes in) the Lacandon Jungle volunteering with a grassroots organization there. I am first going to be involved in testing for GMO corn, but I hope to get in touch with the farmers that work and produce for the Mut Vitz coffee cooperative, a fair trade producing cooperative that is made up of Zapatista affiliated farmers.
The academic line on this one is that this work, this summer, will contribute to my eventual dissertation research which focuses on the tension between production of luxury crops for the fair trade marketplace and production of subsistence crops. I chose Chiapas because it is unique in that the small farmers (read: peasant farmers) there have been fighting for land rights since prior to the Mexican Revolution, moreover, they have somewhat effectively petitioned the government for communal land rights in the post-NAFTA period, they are traditionally subsistence farmers and they are supported by the Zapatista social movement. So, my inquiry here is two-pronged (1) how does the production of fair trade crops change the way people produce for subsistence (or does it)? and (2) how does producing for the fair trade marketplace align/contradict with the oppositional politics of the Zapatistas, who deploy a much deeper critique of the marketplace?
So, I have to get my immunizations updated, my anti-malarial prescription filled and figure out how to pack for jungle/mountain/city conditions and fit it all in my red backpack. Oh the calamity!
I have received funding for graduate student summer research from the Center for Latin@ and Latin American Studies and from the Center on Diversity and Community to conduct pre-dissertation research in Chiapas, Mexico for two months this summer.
I leave on the 1st of July. I will arrive in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas State and make my way east to San Cristobal de las Casas, where I will spend some time at CIESAS Sureste.
Following that I will be in the southeast of Chiapas, adjacent to (and sometimes in) the Lacandon Jungle volunteering with a grassroots organization there. I am first going to be involved in testing for GMO corn, but I hope to get in touch with the farmers that work and produce for the Mut Vitz coffee cooperative, a fair trade producing cooperative that is made up of Zapatista affiliated farmers.
The academic line on this one is that this work, this summer, will contribute to my eventual dissertation research which focuses on the tension between production of luxury crops for the fair trade marketplace and production of subsistence crops. I chose Chiapas because it is unique in that the small farmers (read: peasant farmers) there have been fighting for land rights since prior to the Mexican Revolution, moreover, they have somewhat effectively petitioned the government for communal land rights in the post-NAFTA period, they are traditionally subsistence farmers and they are supported by the Zapatista social movement. So, my inquiry here is two-pronged (1) how does the production of fair trade crops change the way people produce for subsistence (or does it)? and (2) how does producing for the fair trade marketplace align/contradict with the oppositional politics of the Zapatistas, who deploy a much deeper critique of the marketplace?
So, I have to get my immunizations updated, my anti-malarial prescription filled and figure out how to pack for jungle/mountain/city conditions and fit it all in my red backpack. Oh the calamity!
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