[illustration of Black troops performing mechanical work]
170
Note to Discussion Leader:
This ARMY TALK consists of three parts:
Part I - Negro Manpower in the Army
Part II - Negro Platoons in Composite Rifle Companies - World War II Style
Part III - What About Minorities?
This Talk is designed for discussion on three separate days as directed in section
V, WD Circular 76, 1947.
Before conducting the series, the discussion leader should read carefully section
V, WD Circular 76, 1947 and WD Circular 124, 1946, which are reprinted on the
last pages of this Talk. Circular 124, 1946, gives the general provisions of a revised
Army policy about the use, training, organization, and assignment of Negro personnel,
together with a reprint of the approved Gillem Board Report upon which
the revised policy is based.
In Part I of the Talk stress should be laid upon the threefold objective of the
policy:
1. An immediate objective - a more varied use of the Army’s Negro manpower
than has been peacetime practice hitherto.
2. An ultimate objective - the effective use of all available manpower, should
war come again, without regard to antecedent or race.
3. An over-all objective - increasing the effectiveness of the Army.
In all the Talks it should be borne in mind that the discussion of “race” is likely to
touch off sparks from individuals who have deep-seated beliefs, convictions, or
prejudices in one direction or another. Such discussions, however, may be handled
constructively if the group is kept aware that while differences in personal opinion
are to be expected and respected, the basic purpose of the Troop Information
Program is to bring information to troops and to develop understanding through
discussion.
These Talks, then, should inform troops about War Department policy and stimulate
discussion.
Part One
NEGRO MANPOWER IN THE ARMY
How to use its manpower best is always one of the Army’s problems.
How to use its Negro manpower best is in some respects a special
problem. It is of significance to the entire Army. To this special
problem several factors contribute:
(1) The “general run” of Negro soldiers have had considerably less
civilian schooling than the “general run” of white troops; they are
much less likely to have had civilian training and experience in highly
skilled mechanical fields; they make much lower scores on the Army
General Classification Test.
[sidebar] The most effective use of its
Negro personnel is of concern
to the Army.
WD Circular 124, 1946, and section V, WD Circular 76, 1947, appear on the last pages of this TALK
[page 2]
How did the Axis method work? It was simple. Get your victim to squabble with his friends instead of with his enemies. Play on his fears and resentments to make him hate groups of his own people. Start him quarreling at home. Break down his unity and strength. Thus you’ll weaken him so much that you can destroy him easily. It’s just an application of the old story of the bundle of twigs: when tied together they can’t be broken, but separately they are easy. United, they win; divided, they fall.
It’s no secret now that Hitler hoped to crack the United States wide open by driving wedges between the many groups on our population as he had done in some of the countries of Europe. It’s no secret that Japan tried to make the war in the Pacific a race war, with every person whose skin was “darker” united in a holy war against every person whose skin was white. That neither of these attempts got to first base in the United States or in our fighting forces means that in a time of national crisis the ideas that held us together as a nation were stronger than the differences that might have divided us.
Even at that, although , a public opinion poll made at the height of the war revealed that 85 percent of our population accused one or more of the following American groups of profiting selfishly from the war:
Farmers
Negroes
Jews
Foreigners
Protestants
Catholics
Business Men
Labor Leaders
Working People
That’s a pretty big list, isn’t it? How many Americans can you think of who don’t fall into one of those groups?
[sidebar] But the dangers of serious group antagonism are always with us.
And now that the fighting is over, now that we are trying to get back to peacetime status, and especially when the almost sure-to-come economic troubles begin to show up, the tendency to break up into groups, to point fingers, and to build up resentment against minorities can set in strongly without any pressure from the outside. We do not wish to use the Axis method on ourselves.
STOP How do scientists describe attitudes toward minorities?
[sidebar] A scientific view of group attitudes:
Not long ago a number of scientists at an American university, studying the matter of group attitudes, developed a chart they called “A Continuum of Relationships Among Human Groups." [superscript 1] For "Continuum” in this discussion we can substitute the word “scale.”
This scale or chart of how groups feel and act toward each other ranged all the way from persecution at the bottom of the scale to cooperation at the top. And on the way up it listed such attitudes and acts as discrimination, prejudice, preference, tolerance, and respect, in that order.
———————
[superscript 1] From The ABC’s of Scapegoating, published by the Central YMCA College, Chicago 6, Ill.
The following statement of Navy policy on racial minorities was made binding on the whole service in an order of the Secretary of the Navy (Allnav-No. 423) on December 12, 1945. It was transmitted to me by phone by Capt. Stickney, of Planning and Control, the Bureau of Naval Personnel:
Attention of the Navy Department has been called to a recent incident in which a question arose concerning accommodations aboard naval vessels for Negro Army personnel returning to this country for demobilization. In order to avoid any future misunderstanding on this subject the Navy’s policy regarding various racial minorities is re-stated and summarized for information and guidance.
In the administration of naval personnel no differentiation shall be made because of race or color. This applies also to authorized personnel of all the armed services of this country aboard navy ships or at navy stations and activities.
In their attitude and day-to-day conduct of affairs naval officers and enlisted men shall adhere rigidly and impartially to naval regulations, in which no distinction is made between individuals wearing the navy uniform or the uniform of any of the armed services of the United States because of race or color.
One last post that probably seems to have less context to the last ones since Lucille didn’t post his ramble, but the reason our system is choosing to probably do final fusion is not because we don’t like our parts or don’t see ourselves as complete individuals on our own, but because we love, respect, and trust each other. It’s like having a long term partner and getting married and melding your lives together. It isn’t because you aren’t real separate or that you don’t value alone time or don’t want either to have freedom, it’s because you really respect, trust, love, and enjoy spending time with this person, because being around the other person makes you feel like your best self. We’re probably going towards final fusion because generally speaking, we are better people with one another than alone.
He shrugs. “That may be part of it. I don’t know. And honestly, I’m not paid to know, so I don’t really care. What I care about is growing and helping my trainees to grow.”
“And what would you say your success rate is?”
“I’d say I rank a solid Poppins.”
“… A what?”
He smirks. “Practically perfect in every way.”
You cock your head. “Huh. Didn’t pin you for a Disney guy.”
“Most folks don’t.” He strides toward you and stares down over the shelf of his massive pecs. “So, a few ground rules. You can call me Big Bro, Bro, Sir, or Jeff. Whatever makes you comfortable. When we’re training, I’m going to push you hard. I’m not always so nice as I am in casual conversation. This is a professional relationship, and I expect you to understand that and respect that fact.
“My job is to push you to your limits and help you exceed them. We’re going to be crossing a lot of lines and breaking through a lot of barriers. You’re going to be sore and tired for the first few sessions we have. I’ll be encouraging you to push past that fatigue to increase your endurance and other capabilities. That encouragement can be positive or negative, depending on the situation. I don’t abuse my clients, and the same will hold for you. I mentor them. I train them. I push them. But I will never deliberately hurt them or you. If you turn into a zealot, I will stop you, though. There is such a thing as working out too much. I can help build your body to handle those kinds of loads if that’s the goal, but if you go too far too fast, you’ll do more harm than good. So, I expect you to listen to me and follow my instructions to the letter. Are we clear?”
“As crystal, Sir,” you say with a playful smirk.
Jeff smirks back. “Careful. That just might become a habit.” Then he turns toward the gym proper and a series of mats before a floor-length mirror. A casually waving hand draws you in tow after him. “Come on. We’ll start off with some basic warmups. Stretching, a little cardio. Then we’ll see about setting up a baseline for your plan.”
“My plan?”
“How else am I supposed to train you if I don’t know where to start?”
You look at the mats, where several men and women with varying body types are working either with dumbbells, stress bands, or just testing their flexibility. Some are watched over by muscled figures like Jeff. Others seem to be looking at their neighbors and following together. Some chat playfully or casually. Others remain stony and silent as they focus on their tasks.
“Quite a menagerie here,” you note.
Jeff grins. “Welcome to the zoo, Mister Winters.”
Jeff is definitely not the same kind of man as James or some of his other more muscular employees. His voice and demeanor may be blunt, but his whit is sharp. He might not be a bad connection to form a rapport with here. Time would tell that. For now, however, you decide that at the very least, Jeff is someone that you could grow to like. “Where’s the tiger pen?” you joke back.
Petit extrait d’une anim au pastel, pour l’intro de Tenir sa Langue, co-réalisé l’hiver dernier avec Anaïs Pinto Castaneda et Marion Frappé de l’EMCA sur un enregistrement de Jeanne Hervieux du Créadoc :)
The high Priestess is reputed for being the keeper of secrets. She sits in front of the portal that represents the unconscious mind, and she is the feminine archetype of loving acceptance and intuition. She asks us to consider our own complexity in such a way that is almost contradictory, in that things are easier to comprehend and embrace than we think. While we think people or situations have all these different layers to understand with the linear mind, The High Priestess demands the surrender of such analytical thought processes. When she shows up in a reading she comes with the suggestion that any answers we’re looking for have already been answered; whether by our intuition or the things that come out of it such as dreams or synchronicities.
It takes a certain kind of trust to be able to apply The High Priestess’ advice in any given situation. Her solutions are otherworldly and seemingly impractical. She is fluid like water, and her understanding of the linear things in life change form much as it does, taking the shape of whatever container it’s in. There is a specific forgiveness that comes from this archetype, because the inference is that there’s no such thing as permanence. When we open up to all of our senses of perception, outside of just the forum of tangible seeing, we understand what it means to receive divine truth.
We often think of all sorts of life events or situations we dread experiencing, and perhaps The High Priestess comes to us at times when we’re most steeped in fear of the unknown. Sometimes we fear portions of our own selves, and this is within her realm of magic as well. She is the integrating force: the conduit for expression of the shadow as light’s perfect counterpart, and she encourages us to see that we can be completely steeped in darkness and survive. There is usually no way out of an uncomfortable situation aside from going through and integrating the shadows of it. We can look to the High Priestess in a reading as a sign that it’s time to embrace all sides of something dark, scary or unpleasant.
What is the Jungian Shadow, anyway, and why is it relevant? Here is a short new video of Shadow Tender’s artistic director, Natasha Kolosowsky, explaining & contextualizing these things + some art and dancing.
In brief, it’s a performance and workshop series that asks how humans create and interact with the monstrous within ourselves and in others, and seeks to provide the tools and inspiration to meet our shadows with compassion rather than fear, shame, or rejection. We’re examining these ideas through the lens of fantasy, theater, wearable sculpture, and movement, with inspiration ranging from neuroscience to alchemical philosophy. We’ve been invited to perform and teach at the World Stage Design festival this July in Taiwan, Taipei - one of the largest international performance design festivals in the world! But we’ll need your help to get there! We’re only about 26% of the way to our funding goal, and we only have a few days left of our crowdfunding campaign!
“The Jungian Shadow lays curled up in the darkness of the fictional mind-body split, in the chasm that we tell ourselves separates our “civilized,” “rational” selves from the “primitive,” “uncultured” aspects of our being. Within this darkness dwells the “other”: the deep trauma, shame, and pain of the colonized and the colonizer; the oppressed and the oppressor. The body knows these secrets – blood and sinew cannot be fooled, cannot be made to ignore these aspects of the self.“ -Natasha Kolosowsky
Here is a small snippet of a Shadow Tender rehearsal from our first week of workshops at the Headwaters Theatre in Portland, OR. Part of exploring our Shadow selves is honoring the parts of ourselves that are not always…”approved of” by society. This is SO up my alley when it comes to beastly, feral movements–I’m so grateful to have an outlet for the type of movement that feels like it’s running just under my skin, more often than not…
Let’s talk about full integration / final fusion where the parts are never erased and where being a whole-yet-multifaceted person is the goal of the fusion.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this. Then again, I don’t think that there are many systems on Tumblr who are at this point in therapy with this particular goal.
Final fusion is usually thought of as the merging of all parts into one self. Before fusion, there are metaphorical walls of dissociation between you and other parts of your mind. Whichever part of the mind is active is perceived as “Me” while the other parts are perceived as “Not Me”. After fusion, those metaphorical walls disappear, allowing all parts of the mind to become “Me”.
In the past, the westernized approach to self often led to therapists pressuring fully fused systems to stop valuing (or even acknowledging) that they had parts. It makes sense to me why those older systems would often compare fusion to death. In the present day, the plurality of self is being valued more. Especially with therapeutic practices like internal family systems, it’s more normalized to acknowledge that everyone has multiple parts to themselves.
When I fused with all of my parts for the first time, we still felt each other. We were one person with full access to each other, but also somehow still parts. We were connected parts and a single person at the same exact time. I thought that maybe I did it wrong, or maybe I wasn’t fully fused yet, but my therapist (who is from a culture where having parts is more normalized) told me that this is just another way that final fusion can be experienced.
So, full integration / final fusion doesn’t mean that parts have to go away. Maybe that’s how some people want to still do it. If someone wants to recover like that, please let them. But this is a type of final fusion that I have never heard talked about before.
I often felt alone with this experience. I felt like no one would believe me if I brought this to Tumblr, because people can get so aggressive about fusion. Something that can be so beautiful is often shoved aside and attacked. I think it’s important to talk about this, though. Hearing about this can probably really help some people.
I want to share some statements from former DID patients who have fully fused, from this professional study. These statements helped me feel less alone with my experience.
Rebecca:
“Today I feel I am fully aware and present both as the collective of parts and as any individual part. That is, even when a part of me is present, there is a collective awareness of the experience.”
Irene:
“It gradually dawned on me that I could get some relief if I paid enough attention to the voices and their pain. I understood they needed to be heard… . My integration is about being in control, being aware, being able to understand myself. Whenever I’m anxious and I can’t understand why, I turn inside and I ask: What’s going on? I usually get an answer that either helps me deal better with an external problem or guides me as to how to calm myself down… . There is a clear advantage to my situation: I have better access to my subconscious than most people do. I call this ability Creative Disintegration.”
Loraine:
“I think the best way to describe my integration process is as a progressive one. First, there were brief moments of integration; later on I was integrated during some of the time but wasn’t on other occasions. This developed into a period in which I was integrated most of the time and then, into full integration with only momentary periods of disintegration… . It is a process of forward and backward movement on the dissociation continuum, but the general trend is towards a decrease in dissociation… . once you’re integrated, you don’t feel fragmented anymore, but in emergency situations there is a proclivity to utilize the mechanism for brief periods of time to help with coping.”
Some notes from the study:
“It is noteworthy that integration was not always described in terms of a renunciation of dissociative capabilities. Rebecca, Loraine, and even more so, Irene described occasional post-integrational awareness of the old psychological entities that once formed the personality alters… . Whereas Sara and Tina talked about their lives as ‘one,’ others were clearly continuing to utilize some of the advantages of the dissociative process. It is probable, though, that rather than representing ‘imperfect’ integrations this variance portrays the naturally occurring distribution of dissociative phenomena in the population. It is, perhaps, not only an unreasonable expectation but also an undesirable outcome to have a useful defense mechanism, naturally occurring in society, completely abolished in this particular population.”
I think maybe it’s important to recognize that the boundary between multiplicity and fusion isn’t as clear cut as social media likes to make it out to be.
Recently I got really disappointed with the interpretation of natal chart for my querent - I kept struggling entire Sunday but still it looked like a mixture of personal traits and common places, there was no vibration of soul to it —
till the moment I was drawn to investigate North and South Nodes,
and wow, I was near to cry as the messages were so profound, resonating with the struggle my querent was going through, suddenly all the pieces of the birth chart created the pattern and I knew this was she.
North and South Nodes are the vein of the soul in your natal chart. Soul path, your inner dragon, they say.
Basically it’s the points where Sun and Moon orbit paths around the Earth intersect, forming profound energetic relationships (same way with Ascendant \ Descendant, Midhaven \ Imum Coeli).
Nodes have special names: North Node - Caput Draconis, dragon’s head and South Node - Cauda Draconis, dragon’s tail. Showing they are opposite and still - wholeness.
When is it a time to dive deep into the messages of the Nodes in your natal chart?
you’re in spirituality and metaphysics
you’re tuned into your Higher Self or open to that
you look at your natal chart interpretation and realize that you can’t relate to that or you’ve already integrated a lot of that
certain people, situations, challenges continue to come into your life as if repeated melody
you’re more or less aware that there are certain behavior patterns which hold you back or push forward
Too deep but go for it…
The Nodes are your inner dragon, bringing you face to face with your limits and — opening to the realization of big soul journey - where do you come from? where do you go?
Nodes are usually viewed as opposition - personal traits you already have (South Node) and what you need to integrate in your journey (North Node).
But there are so much more to Nodes and how you can start exploring their messages:
- you can read South Node - North Node as your main theme, what you’re here to explore, what special lessons to learn or to rephrase - what karma to release
- what path will make you truly you, truly happy and fulfilled no matter how hard and impossible it might seem
- your calling, mission
- what are your gifts and inner knowledge you already have (South Node) and what you’re going to integrate by overcoming your limitations and letting go (North Node)
- what are your deepest wounds and pains you’re going to heal in your journey
- South Node as your unacknowledged self, dark side reflected in people and situations brought in front of you so you can start facing that aspects of own self
- South Node as a path of less resistance, North Node - harder but worth to try path
WTF our handwritings were so different?!?! It’s like in integrating we’ve evened things out mostly to be all equidistant from an average point but apparently as of this time two years ago we had a WILDLY vast array of handwritings. I literally saw one and went “What the hell Angela? No one would believe that was our writing if you passed that in to a professor.” Luckily she did NOT at any point attempt to pass anything in that she’d written out herself.
Also some of the littles had handwriting that looked straight up like an elementary school kid’s. I know for a fact that Jessi’s no longer looks like that when she is small. I have no idea about Julian’s handwriting when he is small— his hand writing when he’s a teenager is pretty neat and at body age or higher (which almost never happens) it’s freaking calligraphy level.
Now we still have our differences but it’s not like “physically how the hell did this all come from the same hand though” anymore.
-Octavian (15)
P.S. omg Lestat’s handwriting looked like legit fucking CALLIGRAPHY. Can I have it? Like I almost never use cursive, but if I did, can I dig that out of my brain somewhere and claim dibs?? Because it looks freaking AWESOME.
I have heard many people -lately, and just always on the internet, unfortunately- asking questions about ‘integrative therapy’ as an option for the treatment of DID/OSDD-1, and nothing could be more frustrating to hear…. Because it’s such an indication of the profound smear campaign that several forces in the online community have launched against education, clarity, and truth about our disorder. And I have reached a point where I honestly cannot just endure standing here silently, pretending it is useless to provide people with reality and information that combats that.
There is no such thing as integrative therapy. There is just therapy. And if you do enough of it for long enough you will integrate. Integration just means the long process of healing your trauma. Because an integrated complete identity is what the human brain was quite literally designed to build from the moment you were born. It is not death, loss, or denial of anything. It is the construction of a consciousness and vehicle for experiencing life that holds ALL of the component abilities, skills, emotional potentials, and memories.
Since that is what a brain is designed to build, if by any means it can, that is exactly what will happen. The only thing stopping your brain right now is unaddressed and unhealed trauma. So, of course naturally when that is addressed, so too is your identity made whole finally. This is an incredibly slow and grueling process. It is also the most rewarding thing you can ever possibly do and the ONLY way to find out what it feels like to be fully alive. No one can force you to heal [not even yourself] but if anyone ever says a single other thing about integration than that? Either they’ve been a victim of the misinformation campaign that has cropped up these last few years so virulent it borders on mass brainwashing (and believe me, my system has had to heal more than enough literal brainwashing to know how close that comes to hitting the mark) that is designed to keep all of us from ever healing or people who are not really systems from having to fuck off and get a life……. OR they are quite literally the people purposely trying to instill said indoctrination into you, and they are LYING.
I never have been that forceful before in public statements, because I believed that no one would hear me over the screaming and bleating of hysterical sheep-in-wolves-clothing who do not want to admit —or, more importantly, let you admit that Truth— because it would cost them one or more things they value and covet. But you know what? I have decided I have faith in all of you. You deserve to see at least ONE person, anywhere, state this. There IS no door number three, for the options of who promotes anti-integration propaganda— there are just the perpetrators, and their victims. You can’t parrot propaganda as an ‘ignorant but innocent bystander’. If you’ve fallen prey to a piece of missinformation, enough so that you repeat it, you are one of the victims.
And to those who want to howl or lambast me for saying that? Go ahead. Do your best. Scream like an incoherent, rabid beast until your throats are raw. Reblog and respond with long virulently aggressive rants. Post as many links to the same three articles or the the blogs of the propoganda promoters and pretend it agrees with any book written about DID. Show pictures of out-of-context excerpts from those books. Even go ahead and send me all the hate you want in my ask box or personal messages. I don’t give a fuck, and I will not shut up. There is nothing any of you can do to me that can cost me anything at all. *laughs* What exactly the fuck do I have to lose? I don’t do all I have for the community for attention, popularity, or friendship. I don’t need support as an individual in the healing process from anyone here — I have a strong support network in real life, and I don’t lack any information I might be able to find there. The ugly truth is that, in the several yearsI have been here, I have quite literally never encountered ONE single fact about the disorders I hadn’t already known — most of it was presented far worse and more distortedly than I imagined it was possible to do. I don’t gain anything from posting on this blog except the potential to make a difference that brings healing to people who need it most. Anyone who would like to take thataway from me…. Well, too bad. You can’t get me to delete my blog, and you don’t have the ability to delete it yourself. Or you’d have done that a LONG long time ago.
ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SIGN A CONFESSION TO BEING ONE OF THE PERPETRATORS OF THIS MASS-INDOCTRINATION OF ANTI-RECOVERY PROPAGANDA, I FORMALLY INVITE YOU TO DO SO BY REBLOGGING THIS POST AND TRYING TO ATTACK ME, TRUTH AND SCIENCE.
What is the Jungian Shadow, anyway, and why is it relevant? Here is a short new video of Shadow Tender’s artistic director, Natasha Kolosowsky, explaining & contextualizing these things + some art and dancing.
In brief, it’s a performance and workshop series that asks how humans create and interact with the monstrous within ourselves and in others, and seeks to provide the tools and inspiration to meet our shadows with compassion rather than fear, shame, or rejection. We’re examining these ideas through the lens of fantasy, theater, wearable sculpture, and movement, with inspiration ranging from neuroscience to alchemical philosophy. We’ve been invited to perform and teach at the World Stage Design festival this July in Taiwan, Taipei - one of the largest international performance design festivals in the world! But we’ll need your help to get there! We’re only about 26% of the way to our funding goal, and we only have a few days left of our crowdfunding campaign!
Pictured here is an annotated map of busing routes for George W. Watkins School, which was used as an exhibit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division Case Green v. New Kent County. The decision of the United States Supreme Court to desegregate schools in the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education was just the beginning of the desegregation fight. In order to meet the provisions outlined by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, while also avoiding integrating white and black school populations, many schools implemented “freedom of choice” plans. These plans did not explicitly prevent black students from attending a white school, or vice versa, but it put the responsibility of integration on the student and their family. “freedom of choice” plans placed institutional hurdles and reinforced social stigma against integrating black and white schools, which effectively halted desegregation efforts in the South.
In 1965, parents in New Kent County, Virginia, complained that the school district was deliberately maintaining a segregated school system after Brown v. Board of Education. They brought their case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division where the court upheld New Kent Court’s “freedom of choice” plan. The case was then brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which affirmed the lower court’s decision (though it returned the case to the lower court for a more specific plan to desegregate teachers).
The case made it to the Supreme Court in 1968, which reversed the lower court rulings. The Supreme Court stated that the New Kent district was deliberately maintaining a segregated system and that “freedom of choice” was not sufficient to bring about desegregation. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., writing for a unanimous court, declared: “It is incumbent upon the school board to establish that its proposed plan promises meaningful and immediate progress toward disestablishing state-imposed segregation.”
This year’s Austrian Museumstagwas held 6th-7th October in Eisenstadt with the theme of “Migration- Inclusion – Interaction” and included a mix of presentations, mostly focusing on the projects that have already been carried out in museums throughout Austria.
Migration has been a subject that has become more and more accepted within museum narratives over time, moving from the fringes and temporary exhibitions, to becoming an element that is both expected and demanded.
The development in Austria has been a bit slower than in other countries; Austria on the whole still does not consider itself to be a migration society, despite the sweeping and diverse histories of multi-ethnic Empire, in and out flows of refugees, economic and forced migrants. in a country at the heart of Europe with borders to eight other countries.
Project Presentations
There were two main streams to the projects presented as part of the two-day conferences:
Projects that deal with historical migration and developing new collections that address ignored or missing element in the museum
Projects that have been developed over the past two years in response to the growing number of people seeking asylum in Europe and Austria.
A couple of projects stood out: On day one, the presentation by Kazuo KandutschandChristiane Rainer was a highlight. Their project, as part of the organisation Geschichte Willkommen(History Welcome) , initiated a short rapid-response collection of objects relating to the months when the migration “crisis” was at its peak in 2015 (Sept-Nov). They covered some of the ethical considerations and decisions that had to be made at short notice, such as choosing not to speak to people (“How can you ask people who have nothing to donate something?”) and instead adopting a ‘rubbish archaeology’ approach, selecting objects left behind at the various camps and border crossings, photographing them in context, but unable to collect information about the people who collected them. They also described some of the topics and objects they were collecting, including donations from members of the Austrian public (including some of the more surreal things, such as ornaments and evening dresses), the routes taken (for example, a 20ml carton of milk from Croatia that was left in Austria - see picture below) and the bureaucracy that went along with it (e.g. pictograms from the emergency accommodation showing how to use European-style toilets). The project was self-critical, showing an awareness of how such projects can be problematic, but also why their approach was chosen as the most appropriate.
From the presentation about Geschichte Willkommen
Another stand out project was Migration Sammelna collection campaign commissioned by the Vienna City Government as a response to a campaign to develop a Migration Archive. The project was carried out by an external project team (represented by Vida BakondyandRegina Wonisch, with the intention of the objects becoming part of the Vienna City History Museum’s (Wien Museum) collection. The presentation was honest about some of the structural problems that come with short-lived projects that seek to fill an identified gap, namely, that the relationships that have to be developed in order to collect the stories and develop trust that might lead to people donating their objects to the museum are then abruptly ended when the project is, and the fact that the people contracted in this case acted as a sort of ‘buffer’ between the museum and the people; the objects become part of the collection, but the connections and relationships that were built cannot be maintained.
Overall, there was level of agreement that instead of trying to bend the subject of migration to the current methods of collecting and representation, that museums, curators, educators – indeed every aspect of the institution – instead need to think about how migration and the new and expanded perspectives and approaches of the museum might need to change and adapt.
Employment Practices
One aspect that was mentioned in passing a couple of times – but wasn’t subject to a thorough discussion in its own right - was the question of how well the museum field really reflects the communities they serve? It’s something that this blog has looked at in the past (see “#Museumworkersspeak” and “Immaculate Integration”), but the problem again is one that might be addressed by not expecting migrants or “people with a migration background” (a term often used in Austria is a fuzzy term that can mean anything from 1st generation migrants to those who have one or two parents born abroad) to conform to the same old employment requirements. The question has to be asked: How long will museums continue to require the same things but hope to attract a different profile of people? Again, there needs to be a re-evaluate the kind of institution you are. If what you have isn’t what you are aiming for, perhaps you need to rethink the structures and processes in place and how they might perpetuate the problems and inequalities you are trying to overcome.
From the presentation by Dietmar Osses about the guidelines produced by the German Museums Association, here on collection practices.
Dr. Martin Luther King is shown leading a group of black children to their newly integrated school in Grenada, Mississippi, escorted by folk singer Joan Baez and two aides, Andy Young (L) and Hosea Williams (next to Baez).
Members of Steel Pulse, The Clash, and the Sex Pistols demonstrating outside far right National Front Leader Martin Webster’s house in 1977. London, UK. Unattributed.
![War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947This pamphlet discusses](https://64.media.tumblr.com/a008781338adc9cdedd215ae00881eea/d166b24b0c160c9c-de/s1280x1920/6caf802cfb6427b45f2047a28808ac20796ee5b1.png "War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947This pamphlet discusses")
![War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947This pamphlet discusses](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ed92bfa5cd526e6240e8f722bcccbc45/d166b24b0c160c9c-02/s1280x1920/9b1071ca700295d04c932e0fa6689de20ab931a2.png "War Department Pamphlet, Army Talk, Number 170 [cover and page 24], 4/12/1947This pamphlet discusses")
