The NRA and me

The Florida school shooting earlier in February has provided some particularly compelling examples of development communications in practice. I keep thinking about Downing's description of participatory communications as empowering "those most affected." In terms of mass shootings in the U.S., previous groups of parents, lawmakers, and citizens have certainly rallied and tried to affect change. So what's different this time? I think it's that the "those most affected" group was the discreet group of young people who survived the shooting at their school. Their vulnerability in terms of trauma and power structures became their strength, and they were empowered to speak for themselves rather than being buffered by parents and other adults. They are motivating change where others could not. 

The students' represent a clear message for change: The failure of adults to enact gun control is killing children, i.e., children's survival depends on gun control. This is a change from more abstract messages about how we manage the purchasing of guns, or the mental health of gun owners, or the political framing of "freedom" to own a gun. It is now turning to accusations of "blood money" for taking NRA funding, and masses of companies are cutting ties with the NRA and conglomerates who manufacture weapons. 

Here in Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is being pressured to stop its distribution of outdoor gear made by a U.S. weapons manufacturer. I am an MEC member and this news made me realize that it's not just the NRA standing in the way of gun reform, it's me. Never have the negative impacts of my ignorance around my purchasing decisions been clearer. And it made me think about the way that organizations like MEC are being held to higher standards of social responsibility. Apparently, “very few boycotts ever result in a significant change in consumer behavior.” When they are effective "it’s because the announcement has grabbed the attention of the media and threatened the reputation of the company.” In this case, the downward spiral of the NRA's corporate reputation may be enough to end the tyranny of influence that has stood in the way of meaningful gun laws in the US. 


#NEVERAGAIN

Community media

"We are unaware that the city walls are alive with its social drama. We don’t hear the intricate commentaries they have to offer us about the lives, relationships and identities of those who wrote them. And why should we even care? Because…this drama, these commentaries and the vibrant subculture that lies behind them have a great deal to tell us about the culture we live in and some of the people who share it with us." ~ Nancy MacDonald, The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York.

After the riot, Vancouver 2010

Gibsons, 2017

Venice Beach, California, 2018

Burnaby, 2015

I've always had a fascination with graffiti. Maybe it's related to my background in design--certainly graffiti is font design writ large on the landscape. And maybe it's in the subversion--that the graffiti writer/designer uses space, time (as in train graffiti), and governance as elements of the communication. Graffiti must be observed within the context that it is public, ephemeral, and illegal. So, maybe it's that it's anti-capitalist. Bradley Bartolomeo writes that “Graffiti writing is one of the easiest and most efficient ways for individuals and opposing groups to register political dissidence, express social alienation, propagate anti-system ideas, and establish an alternative collective memory." 

Social movement media

Grand Chief Ed John is the author of a seminal report on Indigenous child welfare in BC published in 2016. The report begins with and expands on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations and makes them relevant to child welfare issues in BC. The report, along with the TRC recommendations, has provided a necessary roadmap for Indigenous child welfare change in BC. It is a great example of a Communication for Development and Social Change (CDSC) strategy, meant to influence power, decisions, and social change in political environments as well as communities (Wilkins, 2014). 

John was the keynote speaker at a fundraising gala I recently attended. Before he spoke he showed a video made by and featuring youth of Tachie of the Tl'azt'en Nation, his home nation. Why Me? is a powerful visual message that hopes to illuminate and destroy misconceptions about the youth of Tl'azt'en Nation. This example of citizens' media shows how small, local media projects by ordinary community members can have broader impact (Wilkins, 2014).


For CDSC strategies to be effective they need some combination of the robust, long-form, participatory types of research projects like the Ed John report combined with the visual, emotional impact of a citizen-led, 'nano-media' project like Why Me? (Wilkins, 2014). These combinations of (mostly) small and large social movement media are the necessary elements of creating layered and systemic change (2014). Downing (2014) confirms, "[W]e have to acknowledge macro-media ­and nano-media as symbiotic, imbricated worlds, not as an absolute, mutually repelling binary" (2014, p.333).



Reference: Hamelink, Cees J. (2014). Chapter 5: Equality and human rights. In K.G. Wilkins, T. Tufte & R. Obregon (Eds.),  Handbook of Development Communication and Social Change (pp.72-91).

I'm back

Sharing trail food at Clo-oose, BC

"Community is the unit of change.The only way we get through difficult times is together." 
~  Margaret Wheatley

My journey from BA Communications to MA Community Development began on the West Coast Trail in Clo-oose, a small village of the Ditidaht people near the west end of Nitinat Lake. A family of three children, father, and grandfather lived close to the trail, and were offering meals to hikers of home-smoked salmon. Tired and hungry, we stopped to rest and enjoy a meal of actual not dried food. The children were particularly curious about the various equipment we had, and I was anxious to talk to them about their home in such a spectacular part of the world. I don't remember all of the father's story but it included being taken away from his land to a residential school, and his anger with his father for letting him go. Father and son had worked hard on forgiveness, and their return to the land included a commitment to raise their children and grandchildren on their land forever. The children were delightful and I was happy to share the Smarties from my trail mix in exchange for some tips for finding leaves to use as toilet paper and their eager laughs and smiles.

I have pulled out the photo of me and the children at Clo-oose several times over the years as a way of grounding myself in who I am as a person and as a professional. I believe strongly in community development done at a micro scale, and I do my best communications work when it involves, respects, and includes the history and the culture of the people I am working with and for. I believe in sitting down with children to understand what is best and delightful and simple about a place, as well as listening to their parents and grandparents about what is historical, complicated, and tragic. 

Communications for development has layers and paradigms and theories for understanding and framing my work as a communications professional. But all that I need to know about participatory communications I learned from a Ditidaht family at Clo-oose on a hot day in the middle of an exhausting hike.