Question for Sandhya!

Sandhya, in what ways do you think western feminists can become allies for feminists in India? Some argue that western feminists feel that it is their responsibiliy to "save" women in the east without fully understanding that there are cultural differences and that 'freedom' and 'rights' aren't always defined in the same ways - what do you think it is important for western feminists to understand before trying to support women in rural parts of India?

Progress Report #4

Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

Zoe Lewis, Sandhya Sridhar, Cloe Pippin, Austin Rose

Progress Report #1

Group: Refugees and Internationally Displaced Persons; Sandhya Sridhar, Cloe Pippin, Zoe Lewis, Austin Rose

Topic: Refugees in the Israeli-Palestinian context

Plan: Our action campaign aims to raise awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with respect to its impact upon Palestinian civilians and its implications for the global community. Not only will raising awareness increase cultural sensitivity, it will also recognize the needs of those who actually live through the now over-diplomacized situation, to coin a more appropriate term.

Questions:

What is the difference between refugees want and what their governments want?

What resources do refugees have?

What kind of physical and psychological hardships do refugees most commonly face?

Why is there such a large refugee population?

What can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?

What is the historical background for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, and why is the situation so stagnant?

Resources:

Arutz Sheva: Israel National News

Palestine News Network (PNN)

EBSCO - peer-reviewed journals

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee website

Israel/Palestine documentaries

Partisan online videos

Tasks (in order of presentation) and Responsibilities:

1. Intro video: What do people at IU Bloomington know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Austin Rose will film approximately 1.5 minutes' worth of students' responses to the question, "What do you think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?" and appropriate follow-up questions. He will then create a 2-minute introduction video that we will play at the beginning of our presentation to introduce our topic, plan, and questions to answer.

2. History/Background prezi: What caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what caused such a large refugee population?

Christopher Lang will create an approximately 8-minute prezi detailing the highlights of the conflict and the reason why a refugee population exists.

3. Professor Presentation - current political situation: From a governmental perspective, what is the current Israeli-Palestinian situation? Where are we at with respect to peace talks, and why have they stagnated?

Sandhya Sridhar will coordinate and introduce an IU Professor who is an expert on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this professor will come speak to our class for about 15 minutes about the different governments' views on the conflict. She will also speak about the most important current statistics that are relevant to this professor's discussion after the professor's talk is over.

4. Refugee Presentation - personal interview of a refugee: What is it like to be a refugee? What resources are available? What do refugees seek? What kind of psychological and physical hardships do refugees most commonly face?

Sandhya Sridhar will interview a refugee from Africa who currently lives in Indianapolis about what it was like to be a refugee who sought asylum in multiple places. Excerpts from this recorded interview will be played after the professor finishes speaking in class. This section of our presentation will last approximately 10 minutes.

5. Volunteer experiences with Refugees - personal transcript: What is it like to work with refugees? What is the difference between what is available and what refugees seek? What situations were the easiest or most difficult to address, and what actions or words from volunteers seemed to have the most impact?

Grace Evans will interview a person who has had personal experience volunteering with refugees via email, and she will read his responses out loud in class. This transcript reading will last approximately 2-3 minutes.

6. From the eyes of a refugee - group skit: Our group will together address all of our questions by acting our some personal manifestations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Where do refugees go for help? What answers or help do they receive, if any? Why?

Everyone in the group will draft and act out this skit. This skit will last approximately 10-15 minutes.

7. Action campaign flyers:  These hand-outs for the class will address the question "what can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?".

Zoe Lewis will create, print off, hand out and present these flyers to the class. The flyers will be about half a regular 8" x 11" page each, and the presentation of them will last approximately 5 minutes.

8. Picture powerpoint: What is the face of refugees and internationally displaced persons?

Cloe Pippin will create a picture powerpoint that will capture the face of refugees caught within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only will this uphold and destroy stereotypes of what refugees are, but the powerpoint will balance our ethos- and logos-centered approaches to this problem with a more pathos focus.

Progress Report #2

Our group has really been working hard in the last week. We met tonight to see progress on each of our individual parts. Austin did an awesome job with the video! He obviously put some time into it, and I think it'll be a great opener for our presentation. Cloe finished the picture power-point and compiled some great sources for us. Sandhya has an interview set up with Dr. Rahman for later in the week. I've started on the flyer portion of our presentation as well. Things are really coming together! We've had a minor set back with a few of our members dropping the class, but we know we'll be able to finish on time. We're pretty far ahead of the game, and we're excited with what we have done so far.

Works Cited

"Al-Nakba Refugees Picture Gallery." Hanini. Mike Odetalla, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.hanini.org/Al-Nakbagallery.html>.

"In Pictures: Palestinian Refugee Pictures." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/middle_east_palestinian_refugee_children/

html/1.stm>.

"In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

"Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

"Refugees of Palestine - In Pictures." Occupied Palestine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2012. <http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/palestinians-in-refugee-camps/>.

Progress Report #3

Sandhya's contribution --

 At the beginning of our project, I was the primary notetaker of our ideas. I have coordinated with a professor who has a wide range of expertise about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such that we may have a video interview of his opinions on the current political status and how it affects refugees in the area. I also communicated with Hope Karekezi about visiting our class to talk about her experiences, but she will be unavailable throughout October, so I provided an alternate solution to another group member. I've researched current statistics about refugees in relevant areas, and I will also be responsible for putting together our final powerpoint. My main role in group meetings was that of facilitation and identifying important issues, but all of us together contributed to brainstorming.

Zoe’s—

I'm really happy about the progress our group has made so far. It seems like we're all leaders by nature, which means that we haven't really had to have a "leader" for the group. We worked hard over the last week and a half, after realizing two of our members had dropped the class. When a few of us met last week, I led a discussion to finalize all parts that we wanted in our final presentation. We discussed how long we thought each segment would take, and now have a better idea of what information we still need. My individual contribution is the flyers we'll pass out at the end of our presentation. At this point, it's still a work in progress. We decided that we wanted to hear what Dr. Rahman has to say in the interview, before we decide on a definite 'Call to Action' from the class. This will be presented on the flyers. In our group so far, I've tried to just keep communication flowing. Sometimes things come up, and people can't make it to meetings. I try to keep people updated on what they miss, so we're all on the same page!

Cloe’s—

Throughout the course of working on the project, my main role has been to research the lives of current Palestinian refugees. I was assigned with the task of compiling a collection of photographs of refugees from various camps in a PowerPoint presentation to give the class a more personal and concrete view of who exactly the Palestinian refugees are and what their situation is like. Beyond that, I’ve also found several personal testimonies of refugees that will help us create skit to model the issues refugees face—ranging from poverty to prejudice. I have contacted a few people from around campus in attempts to find a refugee to come and speak about their experiences and am in the process of working with a fellow student from Yemen to learn about his experiences with the refugee camps there.

Austin’s—

I have already finished making a video for our group that involved interviewing students all around campus and editting their repsonses together. Now I am working on a powerpoint presentation to explain the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Progress Report #4

Sources:

1.) "In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

2.) "Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

3.) Universal Declaration of Human Rights

4.) http://eycb.coe.int/domino/04.html (Refugee transcript)

5.) Peace Building in Violent Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Post-Oslo People-to-People Activities

Ifat Maoz

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society , Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring, 2004), pp. 563-574

Outline:

- Austin introduce

- Austin video

- Cloe introduce prezi

- Prezi (Cloe, Austin, Zoe, Sandhya)

- Sandhya introduce video (with current statistics)

- Rahman video

- Cloe introduce picture powerpoint and skit

- Skit (Cloe, Zoe, Austin, Sandhya)

- Zoe introduce call to action of refugee agency

- Cloe present refugee agency testimony

- Zoe transition into presenting flyers

- Sandhya transition into questions

 Findings: We researched the history of the conflict, learned what would be the most impactful actions that we can do as students, and we realized the extent of how this conflict affects a basic human rights of people, including Palestinians.

We are using self-created videos, a filmed interview, pictures, scholarly articles, and NGO websites.

Professor Quigley Question

What types of steps need to be taken in order to help make Haitian government more fair and less corrupt? Are any of these steps being taken or implemented today and how much progress has been made in the last few years?

Progress Report #4 - Refugees

Progress Report #4: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (Sandhya Sridhar, Zoe Lewis, Cloe Pippin, Austin Rose)
à Sources:

1.) "In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

2.) "Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

3.) Universal Declaration of Human Rights

4.) http://eycb.coe.int/domino/04.html (Refugee transcript)

5.) Peace Building in Violent Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Post-Oslo People-to-People Activities

Ifat Maoz

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society , Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring, 2004), pp. 563-574

à Outline:

- Austin introduce

- Austin video

- Cloe introduce prezi

- Prezi (Cloe, Austin, Zoe, Sandhya)

- Sandhya introduce video (with current statistics)

- Rahman video

- Cloe introduce picture powerpoint and skit

- Skit (Cloe, Zoe, Austin, Sandhya)

- Zoe introduce call to action of refugee agency

- Cloe present refugee agency testimony

- Zoe transition into presenting flyers

- Sandhya transition into questions

à Findings: We researched the history of the conflict, learned what would be the most impactful actions that we can do as students, and we realized the extent of how this conflict affects a basic human rights of people, including Palestinians.
à We are using self-created videos, a filmed interview, pictures, scholarly articles, and NGO websites.

Alicia Partnoy - Question from Refugee group

When you hear or read about Holocaust survivors, survivors of the Rwandan genocide, of Darfur, or any of the other incidences of mass torture and killing, what is your reaction? To what extent do you feel that you can relate to other survivors?

Suppose you knew, while you were in the Little School, that a few college students in the United States were following your story and were researching as much as they could about the situation in Argentina. What would you have wanted them to do, if anything, other than spread awareness? Do you think this is something that other survivors/refugees, even in other parts of the world, would want?

Progress Report #3

I have already finished making a video for our group that involved interviewing students all around campus and editting their repsonses together. Now I am working on a powerpoint presentation to explain the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Progress Report #3

Cloe's Contributions: Throughout the course of working on the project, my main role has been to research the lives of current Palestinian refugees. I was assigned with the task of compiling a collection of photographs of refugees from various camps in a PowerPoint presentation to give the class a more personal and concrete view of who exactly the Palestinian refugees are and what their situation is like. Beyond that, I’ve also found several personal testimonies of refugees that will help us create skit to model the issues refugees face—ranging from poverty to prejudice. I have contacted a few people from around campus in attempts to find a refugee to come and speak about their experiences and am in the process of working with a fellow student from Yemen to learn about his experiences with the refugee camps there. 

Progress Report #3

I'm really happy about the progress our group has made so far. It seems like we're all leaders by nature, which means that we haven't really had to have a "leader" for the group. We worked hard over the last week and a half, after realizing two of our members had dropped the class. When a few of us met last week, I led a discussion to finalize all parts that we wanted in our final presentation. We discussed how long we thought each segment would take, and now have a better idea of what information we still need. My individual contribution is the flyers we'll pass out at the end of our presentation. At this point, it's still a work in progress. We decided that we wanted to hear what Dr. Rahman has to say in the interview, before we decide on a definite 'Call to Action' from the class. This will be presented on the flyers. In our group so far, I've tried to just keep communication flowing. Sometimes things come up, and people can't make it to meetings. I try to keep people updated on what they miss, so we're all on the same page! 

Progress Report #3 - Individual contribution

Group: Refugees and Internationally Displaced Persons
(Remaining!) Members: Sandhya Sridhar, Zoe Lewis, Cloe Pippin, Austin Rose

Sandhya's contribution --

          At the beginning of our project, I was the primary notetaker of our ideas. I have coordinated with a professor who has a wide range of expertise about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such that we may have a video interview of his opinions on the current political status and how it affects refugees in the area. I also communicated with Hope Karekezi about visiting our class to talk about her experiences, but she will be unavailable throughout October, so I provided an alternate solution to another group member. I've researched current statistics about refugees in relevant areas, and I will also be responsible for putting together our final powerpoint. My main role in group meetings was that of facilitation and identifying important issues, but all of us together contributed to brainstorming.

Progress Report #2

Our group has really been working hard in the last week. We met tonight to see progress on each of our individual parts. Austin did an awesome job with the video! He obviously put some time into it, and I think it'll be a great opener for our presentation. Cloe finished the picture power-point and compiled some great sources for us. Sandhya has an interview set up with Dr. Rahman for later in the week. I've started on the flyer portion of our presentation as well. Things are really coming together! We've had a minor set back with a few of our members dropping the class, but we know we'll be able to finish on time. We're pretty far ahead of the game, and we're excited with what we have done so far. 

Works Cited

"Al-Nakba Refugees Picture Gallery." Hanini. Mike Odetalla, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.hanini.org/Al-Nakbagallery.html>.

"In Pictures: Palestinian Refugee Pictures." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/middle_east_palestinian_refugee_children/

html/1.stm>.

"In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

"Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

"Refugees of Palestine - In Pictures." Occupied Palestine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2012. <http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/palestinians-in-refugee-camps/>.

Quigley Question

You write a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so what sort of steps would you suggest taking to reach a compromise between the two peoples? Do you believe a two state is practical and possible, considering the years of conflict? How long do you think it will take before the conflict is resolved?

Article Discussions

Sorry this post is a bit late!

Last week during class discussion we connected a few topics we read about with our topic for our refugee project. Gandhi's article was full of quotes relating to being peaceful and nonviolent in protesting. While we believed that this was a good message, we tried to think what the Palestinians would think of the same article. We thought that a direct threat of violence can't always be met with protesting and nonviolence. As the Palestinians, we might think that we can't be passive or protest in such a situation-- that we're being kicked off our land and it's necessary for some violence. When you see an Israeli army, you can't just pick up a picket and protest. You would feel like you must do more. 

It was interesting to think of things from this perspective. Gandhi's article is so well written and makes so much sense, but as you try to apply it to current situations, it becomes less manageable and possible. 

Meuller Questions

1) Are there any other examples of situations like in Yugoslavia and Rwanda that appear to be ethnic wars, but are actually something else, in recent history/currently happening? 

2) Which forms of international intervention do you suggest are the best methods for dealing with similar situations? (Sanctions, U.N. peacekeeping troops, independent nations sending troops...)

3) Looking at the development of the wars in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, do you see any similar patterns happening in our world today, and if so, how and where?

Progress Report #1

Group: Refugees and Internationally Displaced Persons; Sandhya Sridhar, Cloe Pippin, Zoe Lewis, Austin Rose

Topic: Refugees in the Israeli-Palestinian context

Plan: Our action campaign aims to raise awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with respect to its impact upon Palestinian civilians and its implications for the global community. Not only will raising awareness increase cultural sensitivity, it will also recognize the needs of those who actually live through the now over-diplomacized situation, to coin a more appropriate term.

Questions:

• What is the difference between refugees want and what their governments want?
• What resources do refugees have?
• What kind of physical and psychological hardships do refugees most commonly face?
• Why is there such a large refugee population?
• What can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?
• What is the historical background for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, and why is the situation so stagnant?

Resources: 

• Arutz Sheva: Israel National News
• Palestine News Network (PNN)
• EBSCO - peer-reviewed journals
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee website
• Israel/Palestine documentaries
• Partisan online videos

Tasks (in order of presentation) and Responsibilities:

1. Intro video: What do people at IU Bloomington know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

• Austin Rose will film approximately 1.5 minutes' worth of students' responses to the question, "What do you think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?" and appropriate follow-up questions. He will then create a 2-minute introduction video that we will play at the beginning of our presentation to introduce our topic, plan, and questions to answer.

2. History/Background prezi: What caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what caused such a large refugee population?

• Christopher Lang will create an approximately 8-minute prezi detailing the highlights of the conflict and the reason why a refugee population exists. 

3. Professor Presentation - current political situation: From a governmental perspective, what is the current Israeli-Palestinian situation? Where are we at with respect to peace talks, and why have they stagnated?

• Sandhya Sridhar will coordinate and introduce an IU Professor who is an expert on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this professor will come speak to our class for about 15 minutes about the different governments' views on the conflict. She will also speak about the most important current statistics that are relevant to this professor's discussion after the professor's talk is over.

4. Refugee Presentation - personal interview of a refugee: What is it like to be a refugee? What resources are available? What do refugees seek? What kind of psychological and physical hardships do refugees most commonly face?

• Sandhya Sridhar will interview a refugee from Africa who currently lives in Indianapolis about what it was like to be a refugee who sought asylum in multiple places. Excerpts from this recorded interview will be played after the professor finishes speaking in class. This section of our presentation will last approximately 10 minutes.

5. Volunteer experiences with Refugees - personal transcript: What is it like to work with refugees? What is the difference between what is available and what refugees seek? What situations were the easiest or most difficult to address, and what actions or words from volunteers seemed to have the most impact?

• Grace Evans will interview a person who has had personal experience volunteering with refugees via email, and she will read his responses out loud in class. This transcript reading will last approximately 2-3 minutes. 

6. From the eyes of a refugee - group skit: Our group will together address all of our questions by acting our some personal manifestations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Where do refugees go for help? What answers or help do they receive, if any? Why?

• Everyone in the group will draft and act out this skit. This skit will last approximately 10-15 minutes.

7. Action campaign flyers:  These hand-outs for the class will address the question "what can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?".

• Zoe Lewis will create, print off, hand out and present these flyers to the class. The flyers will be about half a regular 8" x 11" page each, and the presentation of them will last approximately 5 minutes.

8. Picture powerpoint: What is the face of refugees and internationally displaced persons?

• Cloe Pippin will create a picture powerpoint that will capture the face of refugees caught within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only will this uphold and destroy stereotypes of what refugees are, but the powerpoint will balance our ethos- and logos-centered approaches to this problem with a more pathos focus. 

Finnemore Article Discussion

From the article National Interests in International Society by Martha Finnemore, we could bring up a few points:

• Since the Red Cross is an international association that cares for all people effected by war regardless of nationality, perhaps they could offer aid to Palestine

• We could mention how organizations such as the Red Cross have found ways to respect human rights of both sides during war, so why haven't Israel and Palestine found a way to deal with this conflict without violating international human rights laws?

Fein & Franke Article Discussion

Our group found several parts of this week's articles applicable to our action committee subject. In particular, we talked about how the Fein article brought up the issue of when exactly a foreign conflict becomes "our business," when it becomes our place to go in and do something about it and when it's really none of our business. Since our subject is international refugees and displaces persons and our focus is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we felt that this is a particular important question with regards to who we give our help to, and when we give our help, in this conflict.

We also talked about the Franke article and how difficult it is to define universal human rights when you consider every society's own form of cultural exceptionalism: if the believe that what they're doing falls under their own culture's protection of human rights, applying our own definition of human rights to their situation can get complicated. For example, Americans feel very strongly that Afghan women should be properly educated, that education should be a universal right, yet not all Afghanis share that sentiment. Similarly, many of us Americans feel that capital punishment is a fair and justifiable part of our criminal justice system, while many folks in Europe consider this practice barbaric, a violation of universal human rights. As we dig deeper into our Israel-Palestine research, we will have to make sure to continually ask ourselves "does this violate a universal human right or does this violate an American ideal that we feel we ought to impose on everyone else?"

Article Discussions

What we thought we could use:

• Donelly- rights are socially constructed. How does this apply to rights where we're from versus the rights in the country (countries) we choose to do our project on?

• Fein-- Do we intervene? If we do, do we push our agenda?
• Ranking of rights defined by culture. Example: Do they think the right to their land           is greater than the right to Palestinian life?
  
• How far can you go with your own right before it infringes on someone else's? Example we discussed: Is the US right to land more important than the immigrants right to pursuit of happiness? 

            

Instructions

Every Student Must Use a "Label" to apply his or her post to the correct action group. If you do not do this, your post will get lost in the home page (http://i204fall2012b.blogspot.com/) and not appear in your Label page linked at the top of the blog.

The Labels for each Action Group are as follows:

AIDS: AIDS as a Human Rights Issue Action Group
CED: Corporate Environmental Destruction Action Group
Darfur: Darfur Action Group
GB: Guantanamo Bay Action Group
HT: Human Trafficking Action Group
Refugee: Refugees Action Group


If you forgot to label your post, then please edit your post and simply add the correct label by selecting it from the list on the right side of the screen.

Thanks,

-JH