We have been called to think carefully about the words that we choose to speak and write.
"Words are sacred," Lee Maracle guides us to recognize, "they have power and impact." As such, it is imperative that we take time to communicate with intention: carefully, deliberate and with attention to reverberations. Michele Foucault also tell us that discourse is in itself a creative force: our discourses produce the things we are talking about, we speak our realities into existence. We need to approach discourse with careful, attentive deliberation. And, Thomas King reminds us that “the truth about stories is that, that’s all we are,” so it is imperative that we are careful and deliberate and attentive to the stories we create and conjure.
Ours (North America) is a world created from a story rooted in hierarchies of being, individuation and competition,
but, Thomas King asks, “What kind of a world might we have created with [a different] kind of story?"
Words create, thoughts create, stories create. Following these and kindred storytellers, we need to consider the affects and effects of the worlds we story, what we are creating and where we want our creations to take us.
Foucault, Michele. 1982. ‘The Subject and Power.’ In Critical Inquiry. Vol. 8. No. 4. p777-795.
King, Thomas. 2003. The Truth About Stories. House of Anansi Press Inc. Toronto ON. p27-29.
Maracle, Lee. 2015. Memory Serves. NeWest Press. Alberta Canada. p173.
Interrupting Movements in Barcelona
This article has been adapted from the final section of my Masters' Research Paper. Following the activism of a resident in Barcelona, this article considers the effects of tourism on local life, and the responsibility of visitors (tourists and researchers) to recognize their privilege to move and tour and the harm it may be causing.
View the article here.
Ryan, Nadine. 2020. "Interrupting Movements in Barcelona." In Lucero 25 ,(1).
