GEOG 423: Cut Me Once, Cut Me Twic, Cut Me Three Times...

This Video is A Response to a quesion posed in a my Geography class at UBC.

Question:

Question: Can current environmental problems be solved through more intelligent application of the conventional modern ideas about humans, the environment and proper relations between them, or are fundamental changes to prevailing basic assumptions and attitudes required?

Part of my Artist Statement

My art piece argues that more intelligent application of conventional modern ideas is futile and sustainability can only be achieved through a re-evaluation of these ideas and their fundamental assumptions. Conventional assumptions must be redressed in a way that reveals their roots in colonial values, and thus demonstrates that they cannot result in sustainability. My film uses the example of the colonial project of Kenya to exemplify this argument.
The pattern of export agriculture illustrated by the Kenya-UK Cut Flower commodity chain maintains a particular constellation of power inherited from colonialism. Acting from within this paradigm, sustainability cannot be achieved. The current power structure is inundated by conventional modern ideas about humans, the environment and proper relations between them, masquerading as the true solutions to environmental problems. Sustainability is an opportunity presented only through the existence of equity within social, environmental and economic imperatives. Blindness to colonial legacies precludes sustainability, as it fails to address its three imperatives. For colonialism is facilitated when indigenous or non-hegemonic persons or groups values, beliefs and realities (e.g. social, environmental and economic) are realigned and assimilated to the colonial societys values and beliefs. Therefore, the Kenya-UK cut flower commodity chain needs to effectively address its inherent environmental and social issues, it must divest itself of the colonial paradigm in exchange for an equitable partnership between the three imperatives of sustainability.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Geog
• 423
• adam
• kebede
• ubc
• environment
• kenya
• uk
• commodity
• chain
• solutions
• coloniaism
• colonial
• project
• Cut
• flower
• trade
• roses
• stains
• Geography

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