When we consider a problem like global volunteering, we must ask why the countries visited are struggling. Do they struggle because they are slower or less capable than we are? Or is global poverty largely the result of asymmetrical socioeconomic relationships between them and the “developed” world? If we look at Canada’s economic role internationally, we’re a leading investor in global resource extraction, especially mining operations that transfer enormous volumes of capital to corporate investors and make negligible returns to workers and supplying countries.

Extraction is often accompanied by the forcible displacement of communities, the destruction of ecosystems, the poisoning of water sources and the murder of protesters opposed to projects. Canada obstructs policy changes that might curb this looting by signing Foreign Investor Protection Agreements as well as documents like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

So what does this all have to with a bunch of charitable students? After all, voluntourists are not as such directly associated with any level of government and are rarely investors themselves. The answer lies at the origin of the voluntourist impetus – not “goodwill,” but an industry. Voluntourism is a $2-billion business that capitalizes on altruism to rake in members and expand profits for investors. Their programs make tremendous progress in the way of lining resumes and alleviating the guilt one might feel for having so much at the expense of so many. More importantly, they make students feel useful and good. One would be forgiven to consider that non-profit organizations are a less egregious option, but the fact remains that all voluntourism operates not on the explicit recognition or handling of underlying causes of “underdevelopment,” but the implicit acceptance of their perpetuity.

Considering this organizing principle, we are also confronted with the problem that as voluntourism does not deal with real problems in practice, it also obscures those problems in the discourse surrounding them. The act of engaging in voluntourism repeats to students, their families and the public the old refrain in which we characterize the global poor not as active subjects, but as passive objects. It reminds us that we get to determine the origin, treatment and outcomes of poverty, and insulates from public understanding those who are affected the most by neocolonial violence and do the most to shed light on the real issues – mainly, black and Indigenous peoples.

This phenomenon is so prevalent and so useful to business interests that one of the Canadian Conservative Party’s main axioms in foreign policy making is the framing of “developing” countries as freeloaders to the Canadian coffer as opposed to the exploited producers they are.

If we truly want to make our efforts count toward helping those who struggle abroad, our engagement must take the shape of actively recognizing and challenging the institutions and narratives driving those struggles – beginning with the removal of our participation with organizations that fundamentally abet these racialized structures. If we fail to do so, our altruism can be co-opted by repression. As Sara Ahmed writes, “anti-racism may even provide the conditions for a new discourse of white pride.”

If there is one thing we can learn from the Mt. A faculty strike of 2014, or the more recent Harvard strike, it’s that now more than ever, universities are a business first. The privatization of higher education has heavily oriented research and policy toward profitability,  exacerbating inequalities rather than rallying the vanguard of societal change.

I had the opportunity last week to hear the experiences of a few Mt. A students living with mental illness at Change Your Mind’s Elephant in the Room. With every story, it became clearer that I could never configure a “mental health strategy” on my own for the variety of experiences and concerns that exist in this community. By the end of the event, I was reminded of how important it is to hear the experiences of others living with mental illness, but I was also left somewhat disappointed. The state of Mt. A’s mental health services had not been mentioned once, and although it wasn’t under the purview of Change Your Mind’s goals that night, it should have been.

Sympathy and awareness are necessary components to any advocacy, but they can be weaponized, sometimes inadvertently, against vulnerable communities. Corporations like Bell, Apple and even BP have all made visible efforts to “raise awareness” toward issues such as mental health, LGBTQ rights and environmental responsibility. Their op-eds and campaigns paint an image that conveniently masks institutionalized exploitation and discrimination. Meanwhile, customers looking for a product branded with an ethical spin have their feelings of guilt satiated, knowing they purchased a product from a company owned by someone who said some nice things they agreed with.

This is what the Mt. A community must be wary of and actively oppose. It may be bad for business that Mt. A places last in a national mental health services ranking, but the business model of the university is also incongruous with providing the substantial services needed. Students come to this school at a vulnerable and formative time in their lives, often stripped of support systems they previously relied on. Young adults are the age cohort with the highest rate of attempted suicide, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among Canadians aged 20 to 24. If Mt. A’s services and policy are to be changed, it must be to an extent that can contend with this reality.

I admire the courage of students who come forward with their experiences, but we cannot allow our stories to be co-opted into superficial policy changes that take on a mere appearance of responsibility.

Exploring the crossroads between spoken word poetry and mental health, 7 Mondays and Change Your Mind hosted a mental health-themed spoken word event last Tuesday at Bridge Street Café. Sponsored by the Campbell-Verduyn fund, the Mount Allison English department and the Mount Allison Student’s Union, the event hosted two guest speakers: Laura Burke, a playwright, performer, and mental health advocate, and Ardath Whynacht, a professor of sociology at Mt. A and interdisciplinary artist, each of whom delivered spoken performances.

After a brief introduction, Whynacht began the open mic by engaging the crowd with a short ritual designed to prepare the room for a speaker. She performed some of her pieces, which dealt closely with her areas of academic expertise: mental health and disability, the prison system, cultural criminology and their intersections. Whynacht’s poetry addressed the distress and fear directed toward people living with mental illness and the societal compulsion to institutionalize them where they are often abused and neglected.

Passages such as “All we can do is be angry, lock them up but not ask why” spoke to that fear, as well as the expulsion and isolation of vulnerable people with mental illness. While her themes evoked the sobering and violent reality that many people face, Whynacht’s poetry is a call for change, cognizant of the often painful conversations needed to challenge societal perceptions.

Burke’s performance followed Whynacht’s with some of her own poetry, as well as a monologue written from the point of view of an institutionalized young woman living with a psychotic disorder. Burke described how she preferred not to shape stories around diagnoses, but that in some cases it was necessary to refer to them because she feels it is necessary to resist conventional biomedical labels.

Between performances, Burke spoke about her fondness of what she called “night language,” which she said was a term used for language that is more affective than rational, and more subjective than unequivocal. Burke went on to revise popular notions of “recovery” and how she believes that the notion of “going back to the way things were” in terms of dealing with mental illness should be replaced with “moving forward.”

Students and other attendees were invited to perform poetry of their own or that of another’s, especially ones which convey personal experiences related to mental health.

Sackville’s first Feminist Fashion Show, hosted Friday, March 11 at Thunder & Lightning, was a celebration of women’s past successes as well as a powerful reminder of the obstacles and repression women continue to face.

“[The event] showed how fashion can be used as a platform to express themes of feminism,” said Anahid Chujunian, owner of Little Cat’s Bazaar and one of the show’s eight fashion designers.

Co-organized by Eleanor Beale and Taylor McCuaig, the show’s purpose was to engage with a multitude of feminist issues as well as to contribute to an ongoing collective action pertaining to said issues. By showcasing handmade clothing items modeled by various volunteers, the event deliberately drew upon the legacy of household labour which continues to be widely gendered and devalued.

“There’s a really strong history of women being associated with textiles and clothing making,” said Beale, “[which is] obviously related to unpaid domestic labour of women making clothes.”

Beale lauded internet activism as a powerful organizational medium – especially on the heels of student-led opposition to proposed budget cuts to Mt. A’s women’s and gender studies program – but hoped the fashion show would bring feminist ideas to the stage in a tangible and public way. The fashion show visibly achieved this: Attendees cheered raucously for each step the models took on the runway, as well as for the political message they embodied.

“Social media is a super important tool,” said Beale. “But I wanted to see that materialize.”

The fashion designers curated a diverse assortment of themes that addressed various forms of gender-based oppression. One example was Jeska Grue’s #debtwear, which displayed models’ levels of student debt on their outfits, presenting a reality which compounds social and economic difficulties women face.

“Reasonable Request” was another theme, curated by Little Cat’s Bazaar. The theme alluded to the Not Asking For It campaign, an initiative which confronts victim blaming and the objectification of women’s bodies.

“No matter what anybody’s wearing, no matter what someone looks like,” said Chujunian, “Nobody’s asking to be harassed, nobody’s asking to be touched, nobody’s asking to be catcalled, nobody’s asking to be raped.”

The show raised approximately $300 to be donated to the Autumn House women’s shelter in Amherst, N.S. The organizers also circulated a petition by Reproductive Justice New Brunswick calling for expanded abortion services in the province and for the Gallant government to repeal legislation that restricts public funding to hospital-only abortions.

Although Beale will not be in Sackville next year to organize a follow-up show, she intentionally called it an “annual” event, and said that there is both an existing support of, and enduring need for, feminist events and discussions.

“There’s an audience for this,” said Beale. “Clearly there’s so much more to be done.”

Friday evenings are almost mythically perceived as a holy grail of respite from the working week. As such, this Friday, March 11 will provide a fitting context for the next blues group scheduled to play at George’s Roadhouse by the Tantramarsh Blues Society.

Riding on the cusp of their upcoming fourth album, the Delta Generators and their energetic temperament are poised to shake dust from floorboards and moods alike. Formed in 2008, the Delta Generators have since established three records that demonstrate the group’s commitment to music that reflects their passion for the blues.

The real beauty of the Delta Generators’ music is their special attention to lyricism that permeates each track and immerses the listener in the band’s truly narrative compositions.

“Something that’s happened in the blues is that the writing has not always been as fresh and as good as you would like it to be,” said Roopen Majithia, co-founder of the Tantramarsh Blues Society. “What’s great about these guys is they have really strong writing.”

The band gained immediate recognition after their formation – they won the Boston Blues Society’s Blues Challenge in 2008 – the Delta Generators went on to be a Top 10 contender in the International Blues Challenge, held by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. The Delta Generators’ creative streak did not end there: their third album, Get on the Horse, was nominated for 2014 Blues Album of the Year at the Independent Music Awards.

“Whenever we get a band from Boston, it’s just unbelievable the level of musicianship that we get,” said Majithia. Boston’s rich musical history and a competitive scene to reckon with have given the city a nasty habit of churning out musical legends, of which the Delta Generators are primed to join. Versatility is a hallmark of the bands’ work; Get on the Horse features foot-stomping ballads like “Diablo Rock” and the elegantly crafted “The More I Find Out (The Less I Want to Know).”

Rick O’Neal’s bass performances and Jeff Armstrong’s drums offer an emotional template for each of the Delta Generators’ tracks, while Charlie O’Neal’s roundly dynamic guitar dances with Craig Rawding’s powerful, raw vocals to produce staggeringly tight performances.

One could say that the Maritimes and the blues have an affinity that binds their histories together. Whether it’s receiving the short end of the stick on the national stage or the continuing inequalities that define the Atlantic provinces, the blues will be here to stay.

“The blues are about hard times,” said Majithia. “I think the Maritimes have always had a fair share of the blues.”

“In an ideal world, people interested in discussing the structure of their relationships would just present themselves from day one as like, ‘Here’s what I want,’” said Lisa Dawn Hamilton, associate professor at Mount Allison and current head of the women’s and gender studies department.

So why is non-monogamy so stigmatized? Established understandings of sexuality are typically formed through the lens of sexual power structures; in a world dominated by heterosexual cisgender men, it’s no surprise that this leads to a narrow scope of sexual scripts, which can be described as the accepted norms through which men and women interact with one another.

“We have this social script of: You’re supposed to grow up, find the person you love, get married, have babies. There is this idea of what is supposed to happen, and any sense of deviation from that can feel uncomfortable,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton also said she believes the reason that we have difficulty having conversations about monogamy is because they challenge normal assumptions of what a relationship should be. She said this can still include when you want to discuss asserting the norm of monogamy.

Under heteronormative and often-dominant scripts, women are often discouraged from discussing their sexual preferences.

Toxic societal notions, especially those which say women “should be chased, and not [enjoy] sex,” can also dissuade people from having mutual and respectful conversations in which individuals can articulate sexual preferences, said Hamilton.

Hamilton said that the discussion of monogamy, and any other way relationships work, can often be easier for people in LGBTQ relationships.

“The research comparing gay men and straight couples [shows that] gay men have almost all […] talked about [monogamy],” whereas straight people rarely do, said Hamilton.

While most of us would say we support freedom of expression and condemn the subjugation of others, it’s easy to adhere to deterministic sexual hierarchies that restrict and punish individuals for the benefit of others. These deterministic hierarchies can be described as the way in which society attempts to tell women what they should do with their bodies.”

Why do we engage in these subjugations of the female body? Hamilton said that it is because these norms provide simple rules which govern our place in the world which give legitimacy to male hetero-dominance and erase questions we would otherwise have to grapple with. “People like social order, and they like to know what to expect,” she said.

Hamilton also said the media shows people what heterosexual relationships “should” look like and helps categorize them as the norm because most of the relationships in media like television and movies are heterosexual.

Pornography additionally helps categorize the norms we see in sexual scripts. Additionally, mainstream corporatized pornography is often criticized for abusing and taking advantage of vulnerable women and creating content that places little to no value on female pleasure. It can also reinforce violent tropes that trivialize consent and remove for the viewer women’s control over their own sexuality. Hamilton provided an example of a way by which we should oppose the way culture treats women’s bodies through supporting ethical porn. Ethical porn can be characterized by non-exploitative practices, better benefits for those involved, and typically more genuine enjoyment on the part of those performing. Ethical porn is also far more often created by women.

Otherwise, confronting our internali-zations of sexual hierarchies requires us to delegitimize positions of social dominance as well as create space for women and LGBTQ people to determine what their own sexualities should look like.

“I would encourage everyone to figure out for themselves what they’re looking for in their relationships, and what they’re looking for in sex, and present that as early as possible,” said Hamilton. “The more people who do that, the more normative it would become to have those conversations.”

Braving tempestuous Sackville weather, recently appointed parliamentary poet laureate George Elliott Clarke presented at the Owens Art Gallery last Wednesday. Clarke primarily read passages from his book, The Motorcyclist (released Feb. 2) as well as a few poems from his 1990 collection Wylah Falls. Reminiscent of a time before brutalist architecture engulfed Halifax and automobile culture peaked, Clarke’s novel reignites memories hidden beneath the hard edges of the city’s downtown.

Based on the contents of Clarke’s father’s travel diary and set accordingly in 1959, The Motorcyclist tells the story of Carl Black, a 23-year-old black Haligonian who embarks on a road trip to the United States and back. Clarke first read from the novel’s first chapter, in what he called a “philosophical” attempt to answer the question, “What does it mean to drive?”

Like Clarke’s father, Carl is bent on getting respect and justice through self-exceptionalism and does not actively participate in or even mention the Civil Rights movement. Rather, he prefers to evade confrontation and discrimination, taking pride in his ability to outwit the ignorant. Carl’s internal narrative is by default a political one: a perspective whereby the hyper-respectability imposed on people of colour is bypassed by the reader directly accessing the thoughts and feelings of the black protagonist. Rather than cater to racialized respectability politics, Clarke’s book forces the reader to internalize the unfiltered experiences of a black man, complete with his occasionally jarring imperfections; Clarke himself described the novel as a “very interior story.” As the narrative of The Motorcyclist advances through Carl’s eyes, the passages seem to uncover the protagonist’s determination to persist and thrive across his escapades and misadventures.

Polished with visceral, grimy prose, Clarke’s poetic flair amplified the tone of his performance with a bluesy, rhythmic tempo. After especially explicit passages, he would invite questions from the audience with a chuckle, engaging in a conversational style and mellowing his captivated audience rather than allowing attendees to feel distanced from what they heard. Clarke’s seamless blend of prose and poetry forms a personal tribute to his father and unearths one of many perspectives often hidden under whitewashed layers of Atlantic Canadian history.

Much like the Cold War setting of 1956 that the student characters pretend to inhabit, they themselves are subject to surveillance and an imposed culture of acquiescence. Outside the hidden alcove where much of the drama takes place, the drones patrolling outside the school’s walls and the rigid conventionalism of their academic and social environment compels the students to imagine and retreat to a space and time where they can articulate their individual realities. In this neglected area of the school, among the self-aware but immobile loudspeaker and vending machine, one wonders whether it is the machines or the students that are more confined.

“[The students] feel that they are under surveillance,” said Fancy. “We’re trying to show that there are a lot of similarities between surveillance in 2016 and surveillance in 1956.”

Bobo, an “android misfit” character played by Mitchell Gunn, provokes questions about the nature of individualism and the contradictions humans display. The dichotomous treatment of animals, sarcasm and other human complexities are utter mysteries to Bobo, which provides a source of humour as well as an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which we justify our behaviour.

If self-definition is the start of an individual, Robo demonstrates ways in which individuals’ selves collide as a result of their differences. Bobo’s autonomy, lack of human nuance and struggle to construct an understanding of the world elicit reactions from the students, ranging from compassion, to disgust, to fear. Uncomfortable with the presence of an “other,” the android’s counterparts betray our instinct to suppress the “other” physically or through less visibly violent consensus. Karl’s fuming animosity toward Bobo, as well as the android’s anxious pronouncement to “delete everything,” become the product of erupting incompatibility within the group of students. Dissent and a mutual understanding that assimilation cultivates toxicity then form the context through which the characters can navigate their challenges.

Most notably, Robo does not offer a contrived solution to the issues of individualism within the production. To be able to face questions about themselves and their future together, the characters learn to celebrate their differences and to accommodate spaces in which others can self-define. As Fancy put it, “Perhaps they don’t agree, but at least their ears are open.”

Rhiannon’s sentiment rings throughout the series of frantic movements that make up her piece, embodying a sense of confusion and longing. In fact, in her most recent show, she became so embroiled in the presentation that she had to take a little break to the litter box. Afterwards she explained, “look, the performance is supposed to start with me scratching at the door where all those big folks come in from.” She elaborated that this act is followed by a quick succession of sprints across the room, an indication of what she describes as “totally not enough room in here.” The third act of Like a Cat in the Dark begins and ends with Rhiannon blending in with a pair of black boots. “This is where my lack of freedom renders me invisible. Also, these smell so nice.”

To explain the inspiration that led to Rhiannon’s performance art career, she recalls “My ‘owner’ was pulling a piece of string and that I was chasing, and I got this idea. What if I can express myself through motions like this? I don’t know if I was right. Maybe I was just stringing myself along.”