Danielle Taylor Archives - 91��Ƶ News

91��Ƶ filmmakers contribute to grassroots struggle to preserve environment in northwestern Wisconsin

Lauren Jefferson — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 20:08:05 +0000

Major news media such as and the are paying attention to an environmental and political crisis developing in northwestern Wisconsin, and 91��Ƶ professor and her spring documentary students are in the middle of the news story.

Their film, “,” is helping to shape a national conversation about environmental justice, citizen activism, indigenous rights, and nonviolent resistance.

Largest open-pit mine ever?

The 45-minute film focuses on the proposed creation of the world’s largest open-pit mine – nearly four miles long, 1,000 feet wide and 900 feet deep – in the Penokee Hills, just miles from the world’s largest freshwater lake and several Native American communities that rely on the water source to preserve tribal traditions and economic well-being.

“91��Ƶ students are helping drive a very important dialogue about one of the major issues of our day,” says Moore, associate professor of and .

“This is a story that is far from over,” added Pete Rasmussen, co-founder of the and a prominent voice in the film. He noted the of a from mining company Gogebic Taconite to Governor Scott Walker’s recall campaign.

The film traces three compelling story lines – the extractive industry of open pit iron ore mining, its potential effect on one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes, and the multicultural group of citizen activists who have been monitoring the site and protesting the proposal. Woven into the narrative is a Greek chorus of West Virginia residents affected by the .

Alerting people of Wisconsin

The documentary is “a message to the people in Wisconsin of what will likely happen if the mining is continued,” said student filmmaker Anne Diller ’14. “After listening to the people from West Virginia share their warning to Wisconsin, it felt like we were piecing together a love letter.”

Since its premiere June 20 on the reservation of the Bad River band of the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe, the film has earned accolades from local activists.

Jill “Peach” Hartlev, a member of the tribe’s , helped host the premiere, which was open to the public and included a potluck, poetry, singing and dancing. Several of those interviewed in the film were also present, including tribal chair Mike Wiggins Jr.

“It was an overwhelmingly positive response among those present,” Hartlev said, who added that Moore’s presence made the event special. “It was very moving for me personally to see those faces and hear those voices. These are personal friends and also people who I work closely with. I was moved to tears.”

Rasmussen said he appreciated “the connections the students made, how it showed an understanding of how we’re all connected, from West Virginia to Virginia to what’s happening here.”

Putting all the pieces together

Local and national media had reported on the proposed project, Rasmussen said, but “the film put all the pieces together and has definitely had a broader impact with audiences who are not as familiar with the issue and the idea that we’re facing this all over the country in a systemic way.”

Hartlev and Rasmussen, who both attended multiple regional showings throughout the summer, noted that the various audiences shared an especially visceral reaction to Gogebic Taconite spokesman Bob Seitz’s statement about the presence at the proposed site of grunerite, a rare asbestiform rock that carries the risk of airborne carcinogens. Seitz’s statement contradicted both of the company’s own scientists, as well as that of Northlands College geologist Tom Fitz.

“There were gasps and laughter, expressions of disbelief during that segment,” said Rasmussen. “The people who have been paying attention in meetings and hearings have seen that denial, but there’s only a few people going to those meetings. So to get that on film is motivating to the public, because it’s something they’ve heard about, but they haven’t seen it.”

Moore – an experienced videographer who has produced documentaries aired by the Discovery Channel, PBS and National Geographic – noted that the experience of capturing that interview on film and dealing with the ethical aftermath was unsettling, though educational for her students.

“The students are really in the middle of this, and that interview segment shows that,” she said. “Here was a company spokesperson offering misleading information, right on film, and we spent a lot of time talking about the best way to handle it.”

Importance of bearing witness

Moore teaches a documentary filmmaking course every two years. (Previous student-involved projects include a and a feature about local cooperative restaurant .)

The challenges students – and professors, Moore says – to think about “91��Ƶ’s message of service and responsibility in a media industry which is so entitled and can be quite destructive and powerful.”

“How do we think about media as creating a sacred space?” Moore said. “What’s our role as a witness to the social justice movement?’

Moore was introduced to the documentary’s subject matter by Danielle Taylor, who holds a from 91��Ƶ. Taylor created the “” video project and blog.

Moore began filming in the fall of 2013. On several occasions, she stayed at a harvest camp established near the proposed site by the Lac Courte Oreilles band, where participants monitor a mining project entrance, conduct research, and practice traditional hunting and foraging skills.

By the time the spring 2014 documentary class began, she had dozens of hours of footage and faced the unique challenge of “getting my students excited about something I was already passionate about.”

Link to West Virginia chemical spill

That wasn’t a problem after the Elk River toxic chemical spill on January 9, which contaminated the water supply 300,000 residents of Charleston, West Virginia, for days.

Senior Emma King and junior Karla Hovde interviewed several West Virginia residents, including Bob Kincaid, host of and a frequent contributor to the anti-mining discussion in Wisconsin. Those interviews had a dramatic impact on King.

“I really saw how misusing the environment hurts everyone,” King said. “Talking to people firsthand, rather than reading about it in a book, put this into perspective for me.”

Her involvement in the project changed her from a casual supporter of environmental causes to a passionate proponent.

“We were able to amplify the voices of a group of people who were concerned about their community,” Diller said. “I felt like I had a personal relationship with the people as we edited their interviews. They opened up and shared their stories with us and trusted us to get their message out to the world.”

Moore says the film is an official selection of the . A spring showing on campus is also planned.

For more information on this issue, check out the reports on the , , and .

Editor’s note: In February 2015, Gogebic Taconite announced , citing unforeseen “wetland issues that make major continued investment unfeasible at this time,” as well as concern with impending environmental legislation. Though the company continues to claim that it will still work on securing permits to mine, some local officials and have suggested the press release is a sign of victory.

Alumni relish returning to SPI

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 15:31:00 +0000

Instead of returning for 91��Ƶ’s “homecoming” celebration – always held over one weekend each October – degree-holding alumni of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) often show up for its annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI).

And those SPI alumni who aren’t aiming to earn a degree? Some of them just keep coming back year after year – almost as an educational vacation – or they send their colleagues and friends to SPI.

Of the 2,800 SPI participants over the last 19 years, more than one in five have been repeat participants, taking courses during a second year or even multiple years of SPI. In that number must be counted almost all of CJP’s 398 master’s degree alumni, plus 91 graduate certificate holders. Some of their MA classmates are now SPI instructors, plus many of their professors have taught at SPI year after year.

Detouring six hours to reconnect

Among the first drop-bys to SPI 2014 were Florina Benoit and Ashok Gladston of India, both 2004 MA grads from CJP and now PhD-holders. They made a six-hour round-trip detour from a family-related stop in Baltimore, Maryland, to say “hello” to folks at SPI.

Gladston was last at 91��Ƶ in June 2011 when he gave a heart-wrenching talk at 91��Ƶ centering on women from a minority group in southern India who were being violently victimized by mobs from the surrounding majority group.

The two, both former Fulbright Scholars married to each other, happened to arrive on May 7 when Doreen Ruto of Kenya, a 2006 MA graduate, was the featured SPI “Frontier Luncheon” speaker, along with her colleague (and son) Richy Bikko, a 2011 BA graduate who majored in justice, peace and conflict studies.

Over that day, Gladston and Benoit interacted with a dozen professors, staffers and alumni whom they recalled from their studies at CJP 10 years ago.

When the day turned to evening and their borrowed car was found to have a non-working headlight, they lingered for activities very familiar to them – a community “potluck” meal, followed by a cultural program led by SPI participants, and informal dancing. (They huddled with this writer for much of that time answering questions about their work in India – but more on that later.)

They then accepted the impromptu invitation of Margaret Foth, a retiree who has been a long-time liaison with CJP alumni, and slept in a guest room at the Foths’ home, adjacent to 91��Ƶ.

“It was like we recalled from our time as graduate students,” says Benoit. “We felt like we were visiting our second home.”

In 2013, Gladstone and Benoit had been scheduled to teach an SPI course on the logistics of humanitarian aid – more specifically, on how such aid intersects with peacebuilding practices, including the “do no harm” principle – but, unfortunately, that year the number of people seeking such training was insufficient to hold the course.

Always more to learn

A third former Fulbright Scholar, Shoqi Abas Al-Maktary, MA ’07, took a break from his job as country director in Yemen for Search for Common Ground and spent May 15-23 taking the SPI course “Designing Peacebuilding Programs – From Conflict Assessment to Planning. ”

“I don’t think anyone in this field can afford to stop being a student,” says Al-Maktary, who holds a second master’s degree in security management from Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. “There is always more to know, more to explore with others in the field. And SPI – with its intensive courses – is a great place to do this.”

Thomas DeWolf of the United States just finished attending his fourth SPI in six years, with the course “Media for Societal Transformation.” He first came in 2008 where he explored Coming to the Table (explained in next paragraph). He returned for a restorative justice course in 2009, and then in 2012, received a scholarship to take “Healing the Wounds of History: Peacebuilding through Transformative Theater.”

DeWolf’s connection to SPI began with CJP’s sponsorship of Coming to the Table, an organization focused on addressing the enduring impact of the slavery era in the United States. DeWolf has played a leading role in this organization, which held its annual conference at 91��Ƶ this year, over a weekend between two sessions of SPI.

Seven times at SPI

A 76-year-old clinical psychologist from Argentina, Lilian Burlando, has an astonishing record of attendance at SPI, having attended about a third of all the years SPI has been held. From her home at the southern-most tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego, Burlando has attended SPI seven times: in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Often with her, also taking classes, have been members of her family of five children and 19 grandchildren. One of her daughters, Maria Karina Echazu, for instance, is a prosecuting attorney in Argentina who took a restorative justice course in 2007 and a practice course in 2011.

Burlando calls SPI “a refreshing experience,” citing interesting course topics, excellent professors and the sense of community. “To me,” she says, “SPI has been a fountain of intellectual and spiritual enrichment.”

Almost all the teachers at SPI – even those like Johonna McCants, who holds a PhD from the University of Maryland – have also been students at SPI at some point. McCants explains how she found her way to SPI:

In 2009, while finishing my doctoral dissertation, I began searching online for practical training in the issues I was writing about. I discovered CJP and SPI and quickly fell in love. I was attracted by the integration of theory and practice, the variety of courses, the diversity of participants, backgrounds of the instructors, and that the program was housed at a Christian university. I participated in Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) at SPI just a few weeks after receiving my PhD. The STAR experience, which was phenomenal, kept me coming back for more.

McCants brought along a first-timer to SPI 2014, Julian Turner. These two, who first met as teenagers, would be married in a month. But first Turner, who works at an infectious disease clinic in Washington D.C., soaked up the wisdom of Hizkias Assefa in “Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” while McCants co-taught with Carl Stauffer “Restorative Justice: The Promise, the Challenge.”

Loves the diverse people

From her base as a high school teacher in a public school in Washington D.C. – and with experience as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland – McCants says she is struck by the egalitarian learning community formed by SPI, where the instructors and participants respect and learn from each other.

Her favorite part about SPI?

Definitely, the people! I enjoy learning from people from different parts of the United States and countries all over the world, hearing their stories and developing new relationships. I also like reuniting and reconnecting with people I’ve met during previous times at SPI.

Discovering SPI on the internet, as McCants did, is not typical. More often, SPI participants are encouraged to attend by previous participants.

Libby Hoffman, president and founder of the Catalyst for Peace foundation, for example, attended SPI in 1996 and took another CJP course in 2000. This year she dispatched two rising leaders of Fambul Tok – an organization doing amazing work of promoting post-war reconciliation throughout Sierra Leone – to take two successive courses at SPI. Micheala Ashwood and Emmanuel Mansaray both took “Leading Healthy Organizations,” in addition to “Analysis – Understanding Conflict” and “Psychosocial Trauma,”
respectively.

Ten CJP master’s degree alumni had teaching roles at SPI 2014: Dr. Sam Gbaydee Doe, MA ’98; Dr. Barb Toews, MA ’00; Dr. Carl Stauffer, MA ’02; Elaine Zook Barge, MA ’03; Roxy Allen Kioko, MA ’07 (PhD candidate); Paulette Moore, MA ’09 (PhD candidate); Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, MA ’09 (PhD candidate); Caroline Borden, MA ’12; Soula Pefkaros, MA ’10 (PhD candidate); and Danielle Taylor, MA ’13. < — Bonnie Price Lofton

Danielle Taylor Archives - 91����Ƶ News

91����Ƶ filmmakers contribute to grassroots struggle to preserve environment in northwestern Wisconsin