Savita Krishnamoorthy

Framing Essay

MACS Year 1 Final Portfolio

4/26/19

FRAMING ESSAY

In the final quarter of my first year of MACS, I see a shift in my own evolution as

an academic, and as a Cultural Studies scholar, where I see the trajectory of where my

research interests are now slowly formulating more cohesively and beginning to take

shape; discourses and conversations around feminism, the lived social inequities of POCs

and the intersections of discrimination, racism and patriarchy. A very strong research

interest (and the space that could possibly be where I focus my Capstone) is the

conflation of the pedagogy and praxis of arts based community engagement for social

transformation and advocacy, especially for people of color communities. I have started

to look more closely at this area of research through the lens, and my own lived

experience(s) as a South Asian immigrant, woman of color, my own positionality in this

conversation, and also through my own critical engagement with the theoretical concepts

in the various classes I have been taking in my time here, and learning important critical

thinking skills on how to navigate and engage with those theoretical paradigms and relate

it to the praxis of those concepts.

“Feminism is wherever feminism needs to be. Feminism needs to be everywhere.”

(Ahmed: 2017. p 4)
 A very important reading that has shaped, transformed, and has had a lasting

impact on not just my academic journey, but also on a fundamental personal level, is Sara

Ahmed’s, How to live a Feminist Life, that I first encountered in 500A.

Stuart Hall says that feminism came into the project of cultural studies, “ as a thief

in the night, it broke in; interrupted, made an unseemly noise, seized the time, crapped on

the table of cultural studies” (Hall: 1992). I came into, and was consumed by Feminist

Theory, through Ahmed.

Feminism as described by Ahmed, applies not just to within the academic world,

but also to the scores of women who are outside of the academic and institutional sphere,

living their everyday lives. This is whom Ahmed addresses in her book, to make the idea

and the ideology of the feminist accessible to a wider network of women.

Ahmed’s writings strongly resonate and I see the intersections between feminism

and patriarchy with Ahmed’s book, and how the theoretical framework of the arguments

will be effective and serve as a guide to me in my research journey as I find myself

exploring deeper into stories and narratives of women of color, especially those emerging

out of the South Asian diaspora (and my own lived experiences), and where, organically,

I find that I have started to really make my area of focused research going into my Final

Year.

When I came into the MACS program, I had a rather ambiguous idea of where I

wanted to channel my intellectual and research interests, but now I am sure that it has to

revolve around personal stories and histories of South Asian female diasporic voices that

are changing the narrative - stories of people of color, by people of color, breaking

cultural taboos and regressive cultural mindsets. How the power of storytelling can be
tools of activism and resistance in implementing social change, through the discourses of

storytelling, seen through the lens of the South Asian adaptation of Eve Ansler’s Vagina

Monologues, called Yoni ki Baat, within the framework of the South Asian diaspora in

the greater Seattle area, taking as a case study the work of Seattle based non-profit,

Tasveer (where I have been a long time volunteer), whose mission is to effect positive

change on various social issues affecting the community. Ahmed will be a loyal

companion in my journey because I know I will be going back to her insights as I embed

myself deeper into that conversation and uncover/discover my own insights.

While activism through the means of storytelling through the spoken word is my

main focus, I had the opportunity in February 2019, to be a part of the Middle Eastern

and North African Literature Festival, a collaborative effort between G-LEAD and IAS

students from the UWB. I had the privilege of engaging in conversation with the

renowned Palestinian artists and participating in the Tetreez (a form of Palestinian

embroidery) workshop, and the experience made me realize how the intersections of the

different forms of storytelling, outside of the more traditional spoken mode, are such

powerful tools of political resistance and fighting the status quo. It also made ne

comprehend the interdisciplinary nature of Cultural Studies, where knowledge production

is produced beyond the traditional textual framework and intersects with the arts and

social sciences. I could contextually reference my acquired knowledge thus far in the

program, to what I implemented in praxis at the Tetreez workshop - the multicultural,

diverse, rooted in indigenous wisdom, and collaborative nature of Cultural Studies.

As the focus of my research has started to gain a more tangible shape, I find that

the methodology of how research is conducted, and the conversations around the ethics
of research methodology are becoming crucial in my own approach to research

practices, in which 502 A (Methodology of Research) opened up the space of intense

self-reflexivity. Eve Tuck’s Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities (2003) offers

an alternative approach research methodology - a desire-based framework, a

methodology of Participatory Action Research (PAR).

Desire fleshes out that which has been hidden or what happens behind our backs.

(p. 420)

This reading transformed the way I look at the ethics of research and how to be cognizant

of ethical research practices/methodologies. Tuck specifically talks about the indigenous

communities and their often fractious relationships with researchers because of the

manner in which, historically, they have been objectified by a primarily Eurocentric and

Western lens in looking at the marginalized as damaged and made invisible, especially

when it involves trauma (damage-centered research). If the net is cast wider, then it can

be inclusive of the trauma and pain of all peoples, and this is an important, significant

learning in my own evolution and ethical responsibility as a researcher, particularly

because of the layers of trauma that will unfold by researching Yoni ki Baat narratives,

and how imperative it is that my research should be mutually beneficial to the researcher

(myself) and the researched (the community), as a collaborative project with the

dissemination of the final research inside and outside the academy, reconciling

Insider/Outsider paradigms of belonging in communities. Using the desire-centered

framework as suggested by Tuck to acknowledge the resilience, power and agency in the

discourse, and in the narratives will be of indispensable value in my study.

 This academic journey that I am on currently at MACS has been one of deep

learning, intense and stimulating academic /opening-the-horizons-of-the mind-intellectual

space, and how everything that I have learned/am continuing to learn, are intersecting

where the insights accumulated in one class, can be applied so holistically, and

meaningfully to another one. I am also slowly realizing that my MACS journey is taking

me beyond the academy and the institution, adding implicit value to my academic and my

personal life, my everyday lived experiences, and in shaping |shattering | transforming |

reimagining | questioning | previously accepted “truths”.

References

Ahmed. S. Living a Feminist Life, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, (2017)

Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies, Stuart Hall, edited by

Grossberg, Nelson, Treichler, (1992)

Tuck. E. Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities. Web, Harvard Educational

Review: (2009)