Thursday, April 19, 2012

Fight the Power by Using the Narrative


By Marcus Carter

Credit Dr. Kara Rogers Thomas's presentation

The presentation given by Dr. Kara Rogers Thomas, Assistant Professor of Sociology, titled “An Aggrieved Appalachia” was surprising. Although perfunctory introductions were given, the talk did not truly start until Roger Thomas spoke, “Appalachia has become a battlefield.” The excitement and tension that began to peculate made this presentation pop was not a product of the setting, a small brightly painted room with peach chairs or the action shots of activists contrasting the bleak environment of a freshly striped mountain top that. More than usual talks advocating for seemingly noble but deficient green images which aggrandize recycling, changing one light bulb, and reducing showers by minutes as simple solutions to complex global problems, this presentation was alive. The presentations’ animation was not due to liveliness, but emotion and controversy.

The presentation oozed with emotions from the speaker, the audience, and the slides. As Rogers Thomas bridled her obvious passions by sticking to her script, purposely, to avoid tainting the audience with biases, her restrained passion added tantalizing suspense that invigorated the annual earth day talk, as the audience wondered if composures would break, freeing and fueling the controversy.

Like the passion-infused atmosphere, the topic of the presentation was also unique. Instead of discussing contentious demonstrations for and against energy corporations, Rogers’ talk broached the tactics and counter- tactics employed by activists to engage by-standers in a conversation of the dangers of mountain top mining, strip mining and fracking and the responses or techniques used by corporations to combat protesters and woo on-lookers to their view point.

Yet, interactions between activists and corporation were more than a conversation, the confrontation of words between individual activists and large corporations was a fight, with which Rogers noted was specifically filled with emotionally charged phrasing and polarizing war and religious metaphors. Although protestors and corporations alike used every tactic, billboards, images, digital media, flyers, which they could to gain support through logic, statistics, sympathy, or shame, one tactic used by activists had roots in the Appalachian area as deep as the regions energy production. The particularly potent tactic, Rogers’ explained used the elements of orally passed folklore, the personal narrative. Rogers further explicated that the narrative creates an inclusiveness or identity, saying, “what is compelling in the use of the narrative as a tool is that it takes the statics, the quantitative and makes it qualitative; it makes it personal.” This personal approach has the ability to move others to action without seeming pretentious or preachy.

The personal narrative came in different forms from documentaries like John Fox’s Gasland, to the talks of grass roots citizens that have become renowned activists, West Virginia natives Julia Bonds and Maria Gunnoe, and through songs like My Water's On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song). Rogers proceeded to give examples of the compelling personal narratives.

As the talk concluded, audience responses added levels of depth to the conversation. Audience members pointed out flaws in the use of narratives, highlighting that the stories can add inaccuracies into the debate. One instance, Dr. Mary Mumper, Associate chemistry Professor, pointed out methane does not dissolve in water as the Fracking song supposes and points out that the water catching fire was an atypical event. Dr. Mumper comment was not to champion the behavior of corporations because she agreed that the mountain top removal is an extremely dangerous and environmentally destabilizing approach, she simply wanted was to elucidate the facts.

The noted inconsistencies, possibly unintentional placed in narratives have a potential to get repeated and weaken protestors stories because corporations tend to focus on those details in attempts to discredit grass root activists’ stories. Rogers Thomas agreed saying, “that the hope is people will be pulled in and then they could do their own research.”

In the end, each complaint in the energy fight boils down to responsibility. The responsibility of corporations to pay for the damage they cause and to stop diverting attention to narratives lack of technical jargon and own up to the companies’ misdeeds. Although the water’s characteristic of catching on fire was an anomaly, the fracking companies tampering did cause the polluting of the town water in Wyoming and their tactics for energy production enriches them but leaves the town and regions increasing impoverished. Responsibility also rests on activists and newly persuaded by-standers to conduct research and investigate the details of their stories and not to proliferate untruths.

Responsibility does not make a catchy narrative nor does it entice people to get involved. Yet the only way to break free of energy dependencies and avoid drastically changing the earth would be to use both parts of humanity, both emotions and logic. By using the strategy that Rogers Thomas exhibited throughout her talk, invigorating passion with the restraint and planning of logic, only then can systemic change actually happen, changing perspectives, lifestyles, and futures.

Links: 
My Water's On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=timfvNgr_Q4

No comments: