Before delving into outcomes, a quick recap of the road thus far… Our final conclusions and take-aways are not necessarily what we anticipated (a wild understatement), but despite some low points after Spring break and a continuously rocky road of structural and goal changes, our project concludes on a high note. Our scholarship has morphed into something meaty – Grid-Group Cultural Theory and Clumsy Solutions were the window into this dialogue we’d been searching for. These frameworks appealed to our audience during FoS, allowing us to reach new conclusions and formulate new goals.
FoS as a Continuation of Engagement
Here is the poster we presented at the Festival of Scholars on April 14.
Our experience presenting was overall an incredible success. It should be noted that our poster was, importantly, further engagement and action. It was our intent to reach more people and hear their thoughts. People were incredibly eager to engage with this scholarship, and were able to identify themselves within the Grid-Group framework. Because the scope of this project was rather wide, and there are many ways to approach the information on our poster, people were able to make of it what they liked. Some people focused on the idea of bringing the classroom to our activism, others were interested in identifying themselves and others in the Grid-Group model in order to come up with ways of bridging these approaches to life. Still others were interested in how to apply this to activism outside environmentalism.
Concluding Thoughts
The amount of excitement with which people approached this new idea was motivating. If one of our goals was to get a bit of a firmer grasp of what people would like to see change in how we approach activism, this has been met. The depth of conversations held during FoS was enlightening. With our audience, we came to hypothesize potential conflicts between the four groups of Cultural Theory. Fatalists that came up to our poster did not fully grasp the purpose of our conversation, while Egalitarians and Hierarchists revealed preferences for different approaches to change. Yet, they stressed the importance of valuing all approaches, and figuring out ways to create effective actions that appeal to all four quadrants. While initially we planned to address gaps between activists and those they are up against, Grid-Group Theory revealed tensions even among people who work for change (or feel such work is meaningless!). Many people showed an interest in a continuation of this project into next year, some going so far as to suggest events or workshops with on-campus groups, bringing intersectionality into the mix.
This is what we take away – activism, like all things, evolves. There are ways with which we can incorporate our critical thinking skills, and there are people that want this. Grid-Group and clumsy solutions is just one (perhaps clunky) way of framing this engagement, and potentially a powerful tool in the bridging of different approaches. These outcomes are not particularly concrete, but we have ways to move forward. Divest was an attempt at situating this conversation, but more legwork was needed before we could dig into something so specific in a meaningful way. Perhaps now another era of 295 students could situate this “research” within specific campaigns on campus or in Portland, with new groups of people. Everyone who approached our poster was interested and insightful – we suggest reaching out!