As we come to the end of the year and our final photovoice discussions I would like us all to reflect on what we have learned from one another. What are the big takeaways, areas of similarities and solidarities, as well as areas of contradiction, tension, and conflict? What have we learned about how young people view community, make community, and move through communities? What can we say about what all people, especially young people, deserve in their communities and what can we say about equality of access to those things? This is our/your final synthesis of all the data that we have collected in the form of images, discussions, narratives, presentations, and blogging. How do YOU connect all of this together? What new theories do you have about the social world citing evidence to support your ideas? What more do you want to know about?
18 Comments
Stephanie
6/7/2013 02:50:20 am
I feel that in the presentations we all presented gives us that thought on how we see our own community. In my opinion, I think that we all don't see the community as how we saw it in class. In my community which I never really mentioned doesn't feel like a community at all, it's like its just a block where your home is at and that's a community. That's my opinion on how i saw it.But seeing the reality and truth on what is a community, i finally realize what a community is. Some similarities I see that we all have in common is that we all really didn't see how our community was until the presentations every group has shown their results. I feel that we all connected in a way because we never knew what was going around us until we actually dug deeper in the class. Honestly, my view on the social world has totally changed because of this class. I never really thought about things we learned in class. like for example, I never really noticed about social, economic classes the city has, I just live it. Seeing the social issues in class makes me think on how our society works throughout NYC and the United States. After this class, I will see the world I live in differently because of the fact that no one nowadays notice the surroundings one sees. I think this class taught me a lot about the real world and it would be a good use to have that knowledge in mind.
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Aurora
6/7/2013 03:00:48 am
Though I view the world as integrated, more specifically New York, it's evident that there are still tensions concerning race and social class. I saw our conversations in class and all these photovoice projects as controversial because we were forced to think and question things that we normally would just let lie. We were forced to define stereotypes and see how gentrification affects different groups of people - in my neighborhood, for example, gentrification helps me because I get more access to commercialized stores like Starbucks, but the downside is the displacement of generations who have been living in Greenpoint for decades but can no longer afford the high spikes in rent because of all these new establishments. I've watched my neighborhood change throughout the years, but I never questioned it because I was comfortable - however, now I see my neighborhood through a different lense because of Photovoice. I've analyzed the effects of a dominant culture on both its inhabitants and the area's physical surroundings and I was forced to reconcile my own issues about identity and why I have tried so hard to separate myself from the other polish people in my community. Photovoice has also challenged us to define "community" and what it represents to us. Some people saw community as the places they love and visit often, others found community in people (family or friends). I never gave much thought to community before this Global Environment class; I saw community as where I live, but I've realized that you can take your community with you. Community includes the people you hang out with and where you feel most comfortable. What a person deserves out of their community is accessibility, safety, and comfortability. One shouldn't feel out of place or isolated in their community (unless that's their prerogative). Accessibility and safety have been two large themes that have emerged from our class' projects. It felt as though we went across all the boroughs to see how each person in the class interacts with its community and many of us love our communities, even if they invoke feelings of uncomfortability in others (for example, one student really loves East Harlem, but many of the other students spoke about how dangerous and unsafe the area is in their eyes). Though some of us have spoken about how we want to improve our communities, I think we feel as though we don't have the agency to do that. A lot of the problems in our communities are not small - concrete parks, abandoned lots, unsafe projects, lack of transportation are all major issues that one individual cannot address by himself. I think our class discussions empowered us because we were passionate about our experiences and our desire for change; however, we simply don't know how to go about making these changes, which makes us feel powerless. Some of us also don't feel as though our communities need to change at all; we've adopted the cultures present in our communities, successfully assimilating. However, I think there will always be in and out groups that tend to exclude someone, but I think that is society in general. Many individuals are competitive and wish to better themselves rather than concern themselves with the well-being of others. Society is constantly wrestling with itself, similar to how we have wrestled with the issues and questions presented from all these Photovoice projects.
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Rachel
6/7/2013 03:07:19 am
I find that, throughout our discussions, we tend to contradict ourselves. We want neighborhoods to have access to necessary things but we do not want places to be gentrified in order for that to happen. This class made many of us think more critically about our communities and things going on in our communities, such as gentrification. The topics of diversity, access, identity, integration, and segregation all relate to each other in some way. A community can be diverse but also segregated or integrated. Depending on what community we live in, diversity, or lack thereof, impacts all of us in some way. This also impacts the amount of access we have to our needs and wants. Being an outsider in a community by being of a different race or culture can mean that we do not feel that we have access to our own needs because our communities cater to or want to appeal to a dominant culture. This makes sense for an economical point of view or from the view of the dominant culture, but from the view of the outsider, it is seen as secluding them or ignoring their needs. I believe that we all think that we should have equal access to things in our community such as food, sanitation, housing, transportation, or green space. However, as much as we discuss this, we still have to do something to make equal access happen in our own communities. This collaborative effort to better understand our own communities and how they connect to each other, to ourselves, and to the people in them, made us all learn about what is really happening. As we discussed previously, topics such as gentrification, social class, or stereotypes are things that are not discussed in a classroom setting or in the media. By questioning things like these, we are opening our minds to things that the education system and the media hide from us. Things that are seen as negative in class or on television are merely a reality, as I learned in this class. That alone is the most important thing I learned from these discussions and projects. I learned to always question things and to discover things using my own research. Our own research can teach us things that school and the media cannot. By discovering different aspects of our communities, we automatically question our findings. Instead of being told what to think and believe, we are able to find out ourselves. This, to me, is the single most important thing about research, being able to find the truth as we see it, and not how anyone else sees it.
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Baily
6/7/2013 03:10:06 am
From this experience i have taken away the different ideas each student has about their community what they feel what their community is and why they feel comfortable there. When we were talking about St Marks a lot of the students who have been there a majority of them said they feel most comfortable there because ts one place where they can be them selves and where they do not feel judged. It seemed to me people felt more safe in areas where they know everyone there and in places where there is mostly older citizens and or a predominantly white area, which leads to the stereotyping comes in to play with on our conversations. We all agreed as teenagers that we had to prove our selves to people that we aren't who they think we are. A Puerto Rican student was talking about him being stereotyped and he went on to saying that most people think that he would drop out of high school because most Hispanic people don't go to college, or for him to become a drunk and or him to get a girl pregnant at his age of seventeen. A lot of students showed that they didn't have parks in their neighborhood and i feel like a park where kids can play and hang out is what every young person deserves. Every young person deserves to feel safe and comfortable in their community, where they can be them selves and just a place where they enjoy being. All the data that we have collected in the form of images, discussions, narratives, presentations, and blogging connect in the sense where it all tells a story of how we feel about our environment and what we as young adults want in our communities and what we don’t want. The project allowed us to somewhat have a say and allowed us to speak our minds, and to have our own opinions and to be able to disagree when we wanted to.
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Lourdes
6/7/2013 03:12:51 am
I feel like we have all come to a realization about the world we live in. Before being introduced to topics in this class I was very narrow-minded and believed that because we're living in America and benefiting from this country that we should have the decency to speak to the language of its people: English. I came to a rude awakening that we weren't benefiting the way I thought we were. It was, in fact, the exact opposite. I was always told as a child to follow my dreams and that with a lot of hard work I could be whatever I wanted to be. The only unrealistic dream my mother ever told me I had was of being a singer, but she and I didn't realize that this wasn't the only dream that I had that the odds were against. I feel like the most prevalent issues that we discussed throughout the course of the presentations was that of racism, stereotypes associated with races, social class in a society, and lack of culture due to forced assimilation.
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Tobin
6/7/2013 03:14:41 am
Since the beginning of this project I struggled with trying to make sense of the whole research project. Especially within the group I was placed in, which included the natural, safety, and crowded areas of our communities. But, as every other group started presenting their own data collection for their project, I started to realize that all of our communities differentiate with one another. The main idea that stood out to me of all the themes was stereotypes and inequality. When Aurora was presenting her part of the project, she mentioned that she cannot associate with her own kind, Polish people that live in her community of Greenpoint, but she can talk to other Polish people that are out of her community. I related to this because growing up in the United States and being part of the first generation of Mexican-American in my family, I feel less culturally related to my Mexican decent. I wouldn’t say I don’t like Mexican culture, but I don’t associate myself with holidays like Cinco de Mayo. Stereotypes that have been said about Mexicans in a way have pushed me away from being proud of being Mexican. I’ve heard stereotypes like Mexican teens only drink and do drugs instead of focusing on their education. This type of statement makes me want to work harder and contradict that stereotype by doing good in school, yet not associating with most Mexicans in the school. Then this is where inequality comes into play a similar role. My parents are part of the working class and it’s so hard for them to move out further ahead. When we watched the video about Wealth Inequality, it really opened my eyes and I think it was a waking call for all of us to realize the reality of our life. Before the video I already knew that the 1% existed, but I never knew how much of a high advantage of wealth they had over the rest of the 99%. The wealthy population will never degrade themselves because each generation is guaranteed a good life with their parent’s wealth. Whereas, if you’re part of the low class you’ll less likely be able to break out of it. But, in my opinion stereotypes have pushed me further to try to make a change of inequality. Hopefully in the future my hard work in school will pay off to get me a good paying job. After every presentation, every presenter were brought up many important social issues, but some questions I still have are “Why hasn’t anyone spoken out to resolve these problems?” or if people do speak out, “Will the lower class voices ever be heard?” I believe that people are scared to speak out because others out there are judgmental and will criticize anything you do.
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Chloe
6/7/2013 03:18:12 am
For me the two discussion topics that resounded with me the most were concepts of stereotyping and dissatisfaction with one's community.For stereotyping some solidarity came with the conclusion that every single person stereotypes, it is nearly inescapable because of the time. You can stereotype someone based on gender,race, sexuality, age, education, and pretty much anything else. Many students adamantly denied being prejudiced yet used terms like "ghetto" to describe students, and "bad" to describe their communities. It was difficult for many of us to understand the extent to which we have been shaped by our stereotypes.These discussion have allowed me to acknowledge the stereotypes I harbor and understand when situations arise where I use them. I hope to minimize stereotyping in the future because I understand it is an incomplete story.
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Leaf ~
6/7/2013 03:20:45 am
After the presentations, there are still a lot of questions unanswered. The topics we chose for our research reflect what we personally think about our community. Do we think our community is safe/unsafe? Is our community integrated or segregated? These are just the few topics we discussed. Everyone has their own opinion on what they think about their community. Although, I believe that the community we reside in and the neighborhoods we frequently visit reflect how we are as a person. Being a young person, we may not like our neighborhoods, but we have to get use to the fact that we live in this area. It may not be the "ideal" place to live at, but we have to get use to it. I am fortunate enough to have access to transportations such as, buses and trains. Some people aren't lucky because they either live far away from the places they need to go to or their neighborhood has limited access to transportation in the city. All communities need access to transportation. Living in the city, new yorkers rely on the subway or the bus. It's so much more convenient rather than driving your car everywhere you go (helps the environment, you save more money!) At the end of the day, we as indviduals need to help our communities become better places!
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Hope
6/7/2013 03:29:04 am
I fee that we all have brought up the subject of segregation/ discrimantion. It's something we talked about a lot but it's also a very sensitive topic in which everyone has a different opinion about. I think every topic had it's own tension but obviously some more than others. For example the topic of gentrification had a lot of tension because some people say they dont wan't it but would like some of these luxuries near their home. Or like it can hurt the communities but at the same time it's good for businesses. So it's a very difficult topic to discuss about.I feel like young people view communities as the place they live in and the places they most interact with. They start noticing their communities and the problems within it once they start actually pay attention to it. I feel that young people start realizing about these issues once it's brought up to them but they don't really do anything about it in my opinion. Its just not young people who deserve "equality if access" but everyone. Young people desire lots of things but in reality it just can't happen. I guess we just have to accept the problems we have now in our communities.
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Rose
6/7/2013 03:40:56 am
From all the photovoice projects I feel like I've been left with more questions. All the photovoice projects have shed light to important and huge social issues that cannot be easily fixed. What I've taken away from the photo voice discussions is that most of us contradict ourselves with what we feel and what we say. Especially with stereotypes. Stereotypes are drilled into our head way before we meet a person which makes us all judgemental to other people that aren't our ethnicity or race. These stereotypes are usually negative and oppress certain ethnicities like hispanics and african americans. Also white people get stereotyped but not in a negative way, usually in a more positive way as opposed to other ethinicities. What I've also noticed is that we have ideas in our head on what is "ghetto" or "dangerous", for example like Brooklyn and Bronx is associated with those terms, why? Times have changed and maybe they do fit that description but just like in the TED talk it is only a part of the whole story. From our discussion there isn't much tension but conflict in what we say. We want certain things and then at the same time we don't. One huge issue that always comes up is how we would like our community to be and most of us would want to change the people who live there. Although we we say this we wouldn't want people displaced, it's very conflicting because I feel that our neighborhoods were made this way. To keep other ethinicites or groups of people together, to not integrate. As I am part of the group of young people I believe that we should all have the right to live in a safe neighborhood and welcoming neighborhood. From our discussions some of us don't live in a neighborhood that keeps one safe or is welcoming and I think that's important. I don't think I would feel happy if I lived in a neighborhood that isn't welcoming or safe. From all our communities we all don't all have equal transportation and I think we're all lucky because at least we have the MTA unlike certain states where they don't have a mode of transportation. Everything is connected together from the stereotypes that most of us have and to our communities and how it is segregated or diverse. A theory I have is that certain of our neighborhoods have certain connotations because of how NYC made it. For example obviously certain housing will attract "lower class people" and also having gentrified other communities that will attract higher class people that could afford anything they want. I feel as though it all depends on who is in charge of our government in NY like the governor and mayor. Another theory I have is in communities that have a dominant culture that usually oppress the minorities in communities. But what I want to know more about is how our communities used to be, like the history behind all of our communities.
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Omar
6/7/2013 03:48:30 am
Concluding the end of Global Environment, I have learned many things about my community and others. I have learn everyone has similar issues such as safety in their community and how every community is affect by gentrification in many ways. I have learned that all of our community has problems and issues that are being dealt with today and that there really isn't a "utopia society". Many of our community faces the issues of big business coming over and taking over in many ways such as making new building for people with high income or making malls and not using the land for green spaces but for spaces that are being used for profit and gain. I believe that areas all around New York City is trying to get rid of low income people and have New York City just full of middle and upper class people. I believe the city is like a greedy businessman who just wants to receive more but give back less. With a city that makes millions a day still has issues all around New York City. One big thing I’m going to take from this class is that New York City is segregated by small communities everywhere. People are not equal because we all do not have equal opportunity to many things. I can relate this to my research paper about if we have achieved Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreams which was that he wanted everyone to be equal and have equal opportunity and concluding my paper I wrote that we haven’t achieved his dream but we are slowly getting there. A place that is known for the land of the free and equal opportunity is complete lies and a great example of this would me the video that we watched in class about where all of our money goes to and the amount a person makes. It was said that only 1% of the people own 40% of the money that is distributed to the people. Also the idea of capitalism which is that the harder you work the more you will get paid but that is big lie. Like in the video about “Wealth Inequality in America” stated that a CEO works 380 times harder than an average worker of the company. The average worker has to work for a month to makes as much as a CEO would make in 1 hour. It’s incredibly how a person who works 42hours a week and gets paid minimum wage and barely gets through a day. This class basically opened my eyes and made me think of things that I really didn’t care about. New ideas such as critical pedagogy and how the media wants us to think. This class gave me the ability to think more deeply about things that I believe is irrelative but in fact it’s something that has to do with a bigger picture.
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Mandee
6/7/2013 04:00:28 am
Throughout our Global Environment class, we had many agreements, contradictions and of course tension filled disagreements. But that’s what it’s always been about- differentiating views and critical thinking. As we explored "gentrification", "social class/structure", “community accessibility” and other many broad topics, we all individually became more aware of what was really going on in our environments. It appeared to be that areas such as “equal opportunity”, “stereotyping” and “wealth inequality” created many conflicting views amongst our class (which is understandable since we all come from different backgrounds and neighborhoods). As we wrestled with ideas around community identity and segregation, we were able to identify ourselves within our communities, and better understand what a “community” actually meant. “Unity” played an important role in what we considered to be important in creating a sense of community. And although diversity in some cases, tended to create a sense of disunity, the majority of us agreed that a community of diversity better impacted those living in/around it. Young people in general do not look at what needs to go into a community to actually make it a community…I know I sure didn’t prior to taking this class. As a whole, I can say that we all felt the need for plenty of clean, green space to be included in each of our communities. Because we all come from many different regions of New York, our individual “green space” varies in availability and funding. There is definitely a difference in how the each of us are able to utilize the public spaces that we live around. Going into my research project, I played around with the idea that the elite, upperclass, and upper middle classes had better access to their communities than that of the middle and lower classes. Coming from an upper middle class community, I can definitely say that lower class communities have better access to certain areas (such as transportation) than my community. To me, everything that we have discussed in class, and have done research/projects on connects to “social class”. Depending on what social class one comes from, availability, education, opportunity, and ultimately SUCCESS is what is determined by it. What really struck me was the video that we watched – “Wealth Inequality In America”. How is it that 1% of America has 40% of the nations wealth? How is this even balanced out? The last line really struck me..."The average worker has to work more than one month to earn a CEO's earnings in one hour". This sentence pretty much became self-explanatory. Power is held by only 1% of the population. I would like to know how the 1% got to the point that they are at…afterall they are humans like the 99% of us.
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Vanessa
6/7/2013 04:03:46 am
Community is different for everyone,each person believes that a separate aspect of community should be looked more in depth. As well as the sense of community for people is unique,while some feel accepted and safe others feel negative towards their community. Before researching into our communities and analyzing them to me they were just the areas in which one lives.We see these places,walk through them each day but see them nothing more than a building or a piece of land but they are so much more than that. We take advantage of places in our communities without thinking that other may not have what we have.We each now identify with our communities differently. Although at times we must accommodate to certain areas that do not provide us with what we believe these communities must have we never feel truly happy with what we have in front of us. However would we be satisfied if our communities changed into what we wanted them to be or would we be left wanting more? Not all communities have access to what I believe every community should have which is food,housing,transportation and green spaces. To me access to these things affect a person’s sense of home. I believe people are what affect the community for example negative people will make others perceive that the community as a whole is negative. This itself relates to stereotypes and how each race as well as a one’s origins are perceived
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Angel
6/7/2013 04:05:15 am
Before this photovoice project I was very ignorant about the situations in the communities of my peers, and in my own community. This project started off as a project about the aspects that make up our community, but it became about much greater things, issues beyond our individual communities. It covered issues relating to race, social structure, housing, transportation, safety and access to healthy foods. If i had to summarize everything that I took away from this, it would be that there are issues in our communities far beyond what we know and have control over. We realized that our communities, New York and America as a whole isn't what, maybe, we thought it was. That the land of "freedom", "liberty" and "vast opportunities" is saturated with corruption and inequality..In 2013 for example one would think that racism didn't exist anymore, or that stereotypes would be less common, but if anything stereotypes and misconceptions about other cultures and races are even greater now. It has gotten to the point where many of us stereotype subconsciously, we do it automatically when we look at someone. The things that we've heard become the things that ARE, thhe truth gets scqued by the perceptions of a group of people that have been instilled in us for so long. This is just one of the many problems that our society faces.
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John
6/8/2013 10:02:31 am
After listening to all the photovoice projects I have come to many conclusions:
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Marionette
6/9/2013 01:02:28 pm
The global environment community research helped me realize how, although everyone lives in different boroughs, the class faces similar issues. We are all dissatisfied with some qualities of our own communities. Certain communities have more offered to them than others, and we realized that it is because what people are offered correlates to the income of the community members. This claim is not always true, but it is one of the factors that leads to opportunities within a community.
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Samara
6/9/2013 05:06:32 pm
Gosh, I have learned so much from the photo voice narratives. I don’t even know where to begin.
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Gene
6/14/2013 04:54:03 am
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