Migration Topics of Interest
“If you can’t keep going, you aren’t going to make it.” Quote from Michelle Tooley’s faces of migration film. (8/24/11)
When I heard this particular quote in the film on the first day of class, I was struck by my personal emotional reaction to the quote. It rings so true to me, since I struggle with sticking with things yet have a strong survival instinct. Perhaps the psychological response to the migration that people go through to different aspects of migration affects them on a broader level. I am interested in studying what this quote means on a number of dimensions. It is an axiom that transforms a number of spheres, from personal to global. I would like to research what response that need and desperation conjure in people who migrate.
What psychological factors determine the success and survival of migrants?
Examples: Me, Berea International Students, Indians, hen pecked weak runt chicks.
“Suicide and alcoholism are common responses to social dislocation. Suicide rates on Canadian Indian reserves are 10 to 20 times higher than the national average.” - Globalization Then and Now
August 28, 2011
I have always been uneasy with the term “terrorist.” I think people who commit acts of terrorism in terms of violence, such as the car bombers, are always wrong in their belligerent actions. But one huge aspect that people tend to overlook is that they do these things for a reason. I think these car bombers are reacting to extreme desperation in their lives. If your basic needs were not met, if you did not have the food, water, shelter, and medicine that you needed, what would you do to survive, to help your family, your country?
I have another qualm with the term “terrorist.” What about corporate CEO’s and militaries who exploit people in the developing world? Monsanto, BP, and the US military come to mind. The people who work to these corporations do not have negative intentions as individuals, of course. Those corporations are terrorists in my book, whether they are overtly committing violence or sowing the fields with chemical dependent corn to be shipped 1,500 miles.
I have another problem with using the word “terrorist.” It is a term that breeds racism, looking at diverse people group as “others” or “outsiders,” and spurs anger and hostility. I think there is a connection between the heightened fears against Muslims in the United States and the attacks in September 11, 2001. After September 11, people from the US saw people of other racial groups as a personal threat.