Monthly Installment: February 2009, Teaching Ethnic Studies, access to higher education, economic crisis

This month I have been meditating on a variety of issues. The United States' current economic crisis has been in my mind. Thousands find themselves unemployed. More people seek free meals every day. What is the fate of higher education institutions in such a moment?

Universities throughout the nation are at the moment adjusting to losses in their investment portfolios and endowments, cost increases, and reduced assistance from the state. The privatization of public universities looms in the horizon. Cuts are discussed everywhere. These recent developments only add to the wave of cuts in and state disinvestment from public education for the past two or three decades. Tuition is higher and our students are expected to be in classrooms with still larger numbers of students, counting with less financial, academic, and human resources. Faculty are expected to attend to larger numbers of students in order to increase revenue and justify their existence. Adjunct faculty find resistance to their historical demands to better salaries, benefits and job security, though our research universities would not be able to operate as efficiently without them. Staff are asked to take days without pay, take on more responsibilities, and accept less benefits and reduced health care, or risk losing their jobs at a moment when finding employment is increasingly difficult. Admission policies are modified to bring in students who will pay more for their education. Suddenly, there is a need to have a "more competitive" student body. Higher SAT scores and GPAs are required from incoming students. The budget crisis justifies all these measures. We must beware. These measures have been in the making for a while.
Meritocracy, free market, personal responsibility, colorblindness . . . These words have justified cuts in public services, health care, welfare and education since the seventies. Accepting such measures now means losing the what student and labor struggles have gained in spite of the neoliberal consensus. Who continues to be sacrificed in the name of austerity? Who continues to pay the price of our commitment to corporate welfare, even in educational institutions? These are the questions we must ask ourselves before giving up on our commitment to teach our students in the best possible conditions, of increasing access to higher education to low income students and students of color, to remunerate properly all those who make possible the education of our present and future generations. We have to wait and see if the new federal budget will drastically change our panorama. (More on the budget next time)

Teaching Ethnic Studies, I have realized that even students who understand the historical circumstances that have produced racial and economic disparities in the U.S. have a difficult time imagining what to do right now. At times there seems to be a lack of hope, a lack of community. For some, it seems impossible to resist our historical moment because it will not touch them (or so they believe) or because they are resigned to it. Others cannot imagine a different world. Others are in search for community, for others willing to produce change. Others seek strategies. I have come to realize that as teachers we have the responsibility of not only giving our students tools to diagnose the problem but also respond to it in concrete ways. This is a challenge for teachers who do not wish to impose their ways unto students, but rather want to see students develop their own. Now I find myself trying to place my students in situations that require us to apply what we have learned reading Audre Lorde, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Angela Davis. By pretending to act and change a social problem together, I hope that they gain skills that will help them respond to our economic crisis.

In the meantime, I myself try to remain hopeful at a moment when it is clear to me that, as a women of color, I must develop particular strategies to not only survive but also intervene in debates regarding the future of our public education system. I am constantly learning how to survive, but survival is not enough. There is no survival without change. But at times it seems that our place in academic institutions is a vulnerable one. As we attempt to survive and change institutional constraints and demands, we risk losing our health and ourselves. So much work remains to be done for ourselves and for those who will follow.

An Analysis of Microfinance in Bangladesh: An Interview with Lamia Karim

This week's podcast interview at Diplomacy and Power features Dr. Lamia Karim, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon who discusses her research on microfinance in Bangladesh.

Microfinance has been a heavily touted strategy to alleviate poverty in developing countries by the UN and World Bank. In this podcast, Dr. Lamia Karim of the University of Oregon shares her research on the real-life impact and spiriling debt consequences of microfinance for women in Bangladesh. Her research on the Grameen Bank and other NGOs reveals many of the unintended consequences of microfinance driven development strategies and offers the means by which policy makers can design better anti-poverty programs. Dr. Karim’s forthcoming book is entitled “Microfinance and Its Discontents: NGOs and Gender in Bangladesh,” and is being published through the University of California Press in Fall 20 09.

Ginetta E.B Candelario. Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007.

Book Review