Nafisa grew up in Queens NY, got some sort of degree in Ethnic Studies and Political Economy, worked in youth organizing/nonprofit, then moved to Kolkata for a fellowship. Somehow she ended up in Atlanta, getting a masters in development practice. 
craftin’ about gendered exploitation ya’ll!
Why yes, we’re playing Human Barometer.
Theater ice breakers.
Well hell. Suddenly I have work up to my ears. & I am shaking with excitement!
This will be the post that answers What An AIF Clinton Fellow Actually Does.
…In the most roundabout way possible.
In general I have dozens of tasks to do for our income gen. projects (IGPs) and women’s empowerment. Making brochures for our export clients, researching contemporary women’s history for publications, creating the NGO logo, setting up the location of trainings … and oh yeah , I was scratching at some issues earlier about writing the Fair Trade tags ….
Clearly, I can come off as a whiner (my last post) and this is sort of the silly contextual issues I was talking to friends about before leaving the U.S. As a typical (blaaarg I said it) lefty woman of color from NYC, because lets be honest there is a scene and it’s small, it completely makes sense to hone how you verbalize your criticism as if it were choreography. Why? Because of the very visible privileged liberals that WOCs deal with on a daily basis through work, school and I guess socially if folks choose. It is also second nature to feel contradicted, ridiculed and silenced when trying to reveal gendering and racialising processes. By the way, there are no soap boxes where I live in. I am talking about when your co-worker who has been given the responsibility of mentoring the only Asian American kid in your program comes up to you in the morning to complain about how he can’t believe that Asian divers, from Chinatown not Jackson Heights Nafisa, passed their driving tests. Do you stare blankly and continue reading your Gwendolyn Brooks or do you sharpen yourself to handle the “interventions” that are demanded of you.
Anyway. The liberals who run the show in NYC are exactly that: in NYC. The choreography that you crafted between the very small corridor differentiating yourself from the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN and the ‘eloquent’ woc is collapsed and inverted here.
Instead of verbalizing dissent and participating in movements, I think the important shift in practicing politics in India has first to do with a shift in your evaluation and crit process. Of course right? The second part, participating in a movement, I am really not arrogant (eep!) enough to do right now. I have so much on my plate that throwing myself into student and community politics when I really don’t have the capacity to invest in long term or even time to become deeply embedded in the theory or issues seems unfair and privileged. I love to observe and support, but Calcutta (at least this time around) is not a place I can start trouble. But then again, I guess I’m talking about really specific visible struggles.
This distinction by the way is huge. I know that personally I am into avoiding dealing with personalities and micropolitics of an activist community like in nyc while i’m here. I just don’t want to meet a bunch of radical middle class kids. But then again a fellow last year was an organizer of the first Chennai Pride Parade. I don’t know him or his background, if he was already working in the community or took the initiative to seek out the community, let alone who the community is ect. But it’s pretty incredible to be able to have the space and time to participate. Power to him. I’m pretty busy and happy with the friction of doing community work through my NGO. This community is not made of my peers, which right now is enough material to keep me preoccupied on about what is solidarity and praxis.
Mmm, gotta love that intergenerational bonding.
impromptu dance break!
What I am getting at is I do have the same issues with micro-credit and Fair Trade. But now that I’m on the other end of the spectrum, organizing the women we glibly referred to as ‘the little brown hands’ phenomenon. &I mean we had little brown hands so our entirely self-centered suffering/profiting by association has nothing to do with anything here, the very characterization of the community is racially triangulated through the American lense… so duh, all of this shifts when you’re feet touch Indian ground.
Whatever. There’s no end to material on this.
ANYWAY. What sort of work am I doing here:
- I am shooting and editing a film for SRI agriculture to use during rural outreach and for documentation (this is a pretty big project. I’m editing down some existing WB state produced films, creating a totally new doc made of footage from last years harvest and this upcoming years. The second video is specific to my organisation and can be used both in the field and during national symposiums or the regional SRI network)
- some ambitious grant writing
- my regular micro credit operation manual writing
- SRI field eval and case studies, which are actually being implemented! So exciting
- strategy and curriculum building for our gender and empowerment projects
I am pretty psyched about being given responsibility and guess what, they are all deliverable!
Recently, and largely by accident, I was able to join the team that planned and facilitated a workshop on women and labor (social + reproductive + productive). It was almost exactly like youth work in NYC except the STRATEGY SESSION WAS SO easy and positive, and something I can’t remember happening since college.
A lot of us have facilitated community meetings, workshops and classes right? My last job I had to do all of this in a pretty terrible institutional setting and all the dynamism and creativity was sucked dry. My ass got burned too as in the vice principal of one of the schools I worked at really threw a fit. That’s what happens when you talk with young people about Sean Bell and the systemic implications of power, identity and violence. &when they recognize and implicate themselves, as in reading the everyday violence that happens on their own bodies and not just out there in the world in the news to “lazy / criminal” black people … not us. WELL THEN … then you have the beginnings of critical consciousness and that’s probably the most dangerous thing in the whole damn world.
Sorry. So I was able to sit down with the most incredible women to swiftly and deftly create this all-day workshop. One was a painter, one was a designer, one a mental health ngo head / psychologist, my awesome boss, another was an Ashoka fellow who created rapid response training for women to respond to crisis situations like rape / domestic violence / police violence.
It was positive. It was progressive. It was easy.
I’m writing the report of how the workshop went after this post so here are some photos.
ENJOY!
super relaxed, safe space, strategy session.
crappy attempt at a made-for-a-broschure photo
