Context
This project emerges from the second assignment in Dr. Sarah Robbins's course, Feminist and Queer Inquiry. This course is a projects-based class to teach methods of feminist and queer research. In particular, this assignment was the second in the course anchored in a unit on Feminist History. With that in mind, we decided to conduct this project as a "history of the present." Preceding it was a unit on Feminist Interviewing and following it was a unit on Performance Analysis. The class was made up of advanced undergrads, master's students, and doctoral students. It took place during the Fall 2021 academic semester in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the class was held in person on the Texas Christian University campus. I (Saffyre) believe it is important to mention these contexts because it is out of these specific moments in time and places in space that these projects grew.
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Vision Statement
Our vision for this project is to raise awareness of and bear witness to missing and murdered Indigneous women, girls, and two-spirit people. MMIWG2S is a serious issue affecting Indigenous communities, and it is important for everyone to learn about this issue so that we can stop this crisis.
At the same time, these stories presumably do not belong to us, unless a student in the class is Indigenous. We - and they - cannot become experts in the brief time we have for this project. Therefore, while it is important to learn more, it is also important to recognize one’s own standpoint with regards to the topic at hand. It was thus vital to the vision of this project to highlight Indigenous voices by focusing on materials created by Indigenous people or where Indigenous people were heavily involved and/or consulted. To that end, the sample projects you will find on the site represent a narrative of the student learning journey throughout the subject, focusing on both content and process. It is meant to be more of a reflection than a report. |
Methods and Rationale
Students conducted research based on a list of pre-selected resources chosen by us and drafted a script for their podcast. We chose the medium of podcast because it is a popular medium able to reach broader audiences than, say, a research paper. It also gave students an introduction into using this new media technology to create a digital humanities project.
We decided that this project should be done as pairs. Working in pairs would allow students to think through these complex and difficult issues together, learning from each other as well as with each other. It would also divide the burden of labor on this project., since the medium might not have been familiar to everyone. Then, students covered their learning journey and overviewed the content of their chosen resources. We gave the students multiple options to choose from in terms of technological capability. Rather than requiring one format for all projects, we allowed students to choose how technologically advanced they wanted to be with this assignment. We did this, in part, because we did not want to burden students during the COVID-19 pandemic. |