shining hopeful people

Lots of discussion at Serial Accomodations this weekend about the problem of writing diasporic Asian women's experience, and about the placement, circulation and understanding of that work inside institutions. No escape from language, or from master narratives. There is still feeling and meaning-- in text or in excess of it? Are feeling and meaning desirable things? It was great to reconnect with old friends and colleagues (especially Kirsten McAllister, Shani Mootoo and Mridula Chakraborty) and meet new ones (especially J. S. Jayasree and Medha Samarasinghe). I was also really happy to see some activist friends in the audience-- Benita Bunjun and Dorothy Christianson in particular. Benita gave me a flyer for Realities of Race Week at UBC: http://www.ams.ubc.ca/ror/. Wow, wish there had been something like that when I was an undergrad here. I'm going to do my best to make it to the Saturday night reading and fundraiser for Vancouver Status of Women.

Today I heard Vandana Shiva speak at the Chan Centre. Rita showed me Biopiracy almost a decade ago, and now that I think about it, alot of the impulse for Salt Fish Girl comes from our discussions about that book. So it was really great to hear VS speak today about food democracy, seed freedom and the evils of Monsanto and the WTO! Scott has been teaching a course about food at Concordia, and Monika has been writing about gardens. I like seeing how so many of the folks who were do work around race and racialization a decade ago are extending their practices into thinking about earth, sustainability, the interconnection of life forms.