​Sticking to the Narrative: Praxis through Media​

The beauty of working on this project is that any experiences while doing research extend far beyond the moment they happen. This is because of the project’s emphasis on praxis: acting, then reflecting, then acting … and so on. It positions us to constantly revisit things we’ve seen and done in the past. My senior year, however, has taken this process of reflection to a new level, as the focus of my work for the past two semesters is simply to understand my experiences during a two-month study of Takau English School (TES) in Taiwan. Through producing written and video work, I have spent far more time reliving a research trip than I was actually present in it.

Take our participation in the TES senior service project for instance. The students in our Taiwan research team – which consisted of Sam Jefferson ‘20, and Ronan Schwarz ‘20, and me – split up to travel with graduating students to villages of Taiwanese aborigines. Our goal was to facilitate conversations that could deepen the seniors’ critical consciousness. However, there were no teachers, no chaperones. We were the leaders of a week-long stay in the mountainsides of Southern Taiwan, responsible for 20 guys and girls we just met. We definitely had enough going on to make identifying moments of theoretical importance a challenge.

The “responsible” one

While we spent a good deal of time reflecting with the seniors throughout the day, our deepest understandings about the trip weren’t developed until we processed them after the fact. When we came back together we spent time daily discussing our field notes and making connections to  greater themes. Then we did it some more as we wrote about our findings, adding another layer of understandings about them. As we returned from Taiwan, Sam, Ronan and I all began collaborating with Adam on articles, demanding deeper and more precise recollections of these experiences.

While I typically saw memories as gradually fading, the process of reflection that comes with research transforms them into something more like a YouTube video, which becomes clearer after it has taken time to load and buffer. My growing awareness of the forces that underlay workings of society allow me to explain details of my observations that I previously felt were arbitrary or obscure. Memories of interactions, events, and places that were long since tucked away vividly re-emerged as they gained significance.

In no way was this limited to what I saw and did at the school and service trip. There was an  instance of homophobia that challenged the relationship between me and Adam, and if it weren’t for the conversations that followed it I may have completely forgotten about it by now. Now it’s so clear that we will be writing a whole article about it together. While processing the incident with Adam, we’ve discussed how the identity of privilege is maintained by kinds of willful ignorance, blind spots. I can’t deny that the moment was uncomfortable, but I know that I tried not to think to hard about it at the time.

The mind is a powerful thing. There’s always the question of whether my memories of these experiences get recalled or reconstructed as I learn more about them. My suspicion is that both happen. Making this documentary (teaser coming soon to this page) has given me an opportunity to explore this question. It gives me the power to control the narrative of our research experience, but limits the amount I can actually fabricate it (to others or myself). Inadvertently, it has actually become a powerful tool for my own self-reflection.

The work on the documentary has kept me immersed in the past. Working for hours on uncut footage of myself and others, from that of us in action to video diaries, provides ongoing reminders of who we were and who we’re developing into. As I search for the right clips to stitch together, I find myself sometimes speaking the same privileged narrative as the TES seniors’ while on the service trip, feeling bad about the circumstances of the aboriginal kids but feeling good about the “contribution” my presence made; I hear a medley of off-color jokes, and moments of critical conversation that Sam, Ronan, and I bonded over; I see myself carrying a basketball everywhere. Hearing the things we talked about and seeing the ways we acted, I always have concrete points of reference to ground, confirm, and speculate about aspects of my identity.

Guy, guy, and guy (pictured from left to right)

Although viewing works of writing and film can be very educational experiences, it cannot compare to the learning from the process of producing them. Constantly gaining new understandings through this work, I find myself editing my actions like video and revising my thoughts like the draft of an article. Since this documentary investigates essentially my entire existence at Colby, I don’t ever fully snap out of director mode. Even away from the computer, I make choices that stay consistent with the narrative. I am more conscious deciding what I say, whom I connect with, and what I devote my time to. Is this a proxy for living an intentional life, or am I actually just doing it?

My work nor myself will probably never feel finished, but I’ll keep revising. Love and Basketball seems like a pretty cool title to life.

Stay tuned.