songs as artifacts
sharonku1. Songs as artifacts,
2. Faith in God enables their forgiveness: how does the belief in God and in Amis ancestor co-exist? (阿美人有祖靈概念嗎?)
3. 遷徙的過程: 從美山,新莊到新竹,從打漁到打零工,這一路轉換對阿嬤個人,她的家庭以及部落代表著什麼?以及這段小歷史如何被鑲嵌在大歷史的脈絡中?
1. Songs as artifacts,
2. Faith in God enables their forgiveness: how does the belief in God and in Amis ancestor co-exist? (阿美人有祖靈概念嗎?)
3. 遷徙的過程: 從美山,新莊到新竹,從打漁到打零工,這一路轉換對阿嬤個人,她的家庭以及部落代表著什麼?以及這段小歷史如何被鑲嵌在大歷史的脈絡中?
“This is a book about work. Really hard work. I’m always glad when people raise a fist against the injustices of systems, including pollution and its sciences. But I’d much prefer people pick up a shovel—or a microscope—with the other hand and get to work. Pollution Is Colonialism is designed to show how scientists and others are already working in an anticolonial way. We always already are in L/land relations, and they come out in our methods. Time to start.”
Excerpt From: Max Liboiron. “Pollution Is Colonialism.” (ebook, p. 67).
Before our tour at the Weldon Springs Interpretative Center, we were asked not to take any pictures of our tour guide nor of other employees. To be recorded publically, they would have had to obtain an official media clearance. The photo points to these limits, with the metal arch obscuring the group as it listens to the guide. In consequence, there are at least two aspects that should be retained in our written record. First were the upbeat style and delivery of our male guide, that shaped our experience of the exhibition. Our group asked him about his educational background and he briefly explained the process to become a certified interpreter. Second is the fact that we were being accompanied and followed around by a group of about six representatives of the Department of Energy. Our group came to agree that this number and associated costs are significant, pointing towards the attention that our (probably usual?) international group of scholars drew. It might have been curiosity or slight hostility, it's hard to tell, also because we didn't ask them directly. The image certainly captures some lessons and dynamics what it means to visit an educational fieldsite with a larger group in contrast to the 'lone fieldworker.'
The Tribute to the Mallinckrodt Uranium Workers is perhaps the most reflexive display in the Interpretive Center at Weldon Springs. By listing the names of the Mallinckrodt employees and acknowledging their sacrifices, the tribute at least intimates how the toxic process of uranium refinement, including the secrecy and deceit that surrounded it, impacted the lives of the local community. And yet, given the juxtaposition of the exhibit next to the "Timeline of the Nuclear Age" and an encompassing display on "The Process" of refinement, the critical nuance of this quotidian, human level is muddled by both the macro events of history and the micro details of scientific practice. It is also worth noting that in the online tour of the exhibit, the purpose and the meaning of the tribute bears no mention all. An image of the arch is provided, but not a single bit of context as to what it signifies. Instead, what we are given access to is only the timeline, the process description, and a romanticized version of the Mallinckrodt story taken from a tour guide that was written in 1959.