Happy 2011!!!

....may dreams be fulfilled, new friends met and joy as well as lessons be learn, always with a bright heart and loving smile.... auld lang syne....

Merry Winter Holidays!

Whatever faith or traditions that you carry with you, I would like to wish everyone a safe and sound winter holiday! Here is a song that for many western people are familiar during this time of year. The lyrics are originally written by an English poet in the end of 1800's. This version is instrumental.

Lunar Eclipse

The moon was beautifully coming up behind the clouds. It was a particular night and I felt very drawn to the mysteries of the old. Soon the winter solstice was coming up. Apparently, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The next time that the lunar eclipse will appear on the same day as the midwinter day or if you prefer, the winter solstice, are in 2094. The last time it happened was in 1638. 

Sigtuna Winter Fayre

Yesterday I took the train and bus down to Sigtuna for strolling around the little alleys and look at all the handicraft that was sold there. It was a nice atmosphere with a beautiful weather.

 Garden Fairies

Sigtuna Flowers

 Culture House in Sigtuna 

Enjoyed a silent and lovely fika here, in the shade of an icy winter afternoon.

Enchanted bags....

Imagine to have a bag which does not weight anything and which you can store a lot of things in. Instead of having a magic purse, I try to pack with just essentials. Learning to become less dependent on the materials and more so to the spiritual. Although, I find it of great imagination when enchanted bags pops up in movies and books in the way like it does here:

Beautiful winter

Dickens Christmas Carol

 

In the mid 1800 Dickens very famous "A Christmas Carol" was published. Ever since then the story has been retold through books and movies. In Stockholm it is shown on the theatre Maxim during end of December 2010 to beginning of January 2011.  

I have checked through internet, because I remembered I watched a similar tale that drew upon Dickens tale, but instead of finding that, these are what I discovered....

 

1938 - Directed by Edwin L. Merin

Unknown

1983 - Mickeys Christmas Carol

 

1999  (I love this scene)

2009

Wall-E

I think it is now time to round up with a suitable movie on the matter... :)

....and here's a teaser:

 

Here is a great short version of the movie, nice clips and suitable music.

Reflection of the conference, last part

This is the last post about the conference "Nature, poverty and power: assessing challenges to sustainable development" organised by the Swedish research network Devnet.

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It is still one more speaker that I would like to tell about and it is Ms. Baviskar which was a very engaging and wise spokeswoman. Her subject was "connecting struggles over nature and citizenship in India". She was the very first to speak on the conference and it was according to me, the most interesting one and best speaker. The reason why I believe so, was probably (because she was... ;) ) because her talk was summing up every aspect of what I have been studied for the last years. She spoke about refugee studies, urban movements, cultural riots and the struggles over natural resources. She stated that planners need to recognise the experience of displacement to be solved, they need to plan also for the people that migrates from the rural areas to the urban. Someone (a major somewhere?) had apparently said something about that you can't spend more money on the ones who steals from you. She continued to (very wisely) say that if you say like that, then you have not understood and acknowledged the problem. People needs somewhere to live, they need something to do (work, hobbies) - earn a living for themselves and their families. It is important to calculate and target these issues when planning the urban landscapes. Because the lack of access to secure employment and legal housings will create displacements of the newcomers. The consequence will be settlements on the outskirts (shanty towns) with bad housings, poverty, starvation, bad health and sanitation which will result into diseases and vermin. Few religions/faiths would improve of letting this happen...

In Delhi you need to have all legal papers else you are evicted and moved. Not many people has all the necessary documents. The city plans in Delhi has focused more on middle class and not to everyone dwelling and coming to the city, but it is important to plan the urban growth for everyone.

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 Read more about her book here.

More about this book here.

Conference reflections, second part

As I started to tell, I took part of a very rewarding two-days conference called "Nature, poverty and power: assessing challenges to sustainable development" organised by the Swedish research network Devnet.

To end my reflections of this participation, I need to bring up two other key note speakers (wrote about the third before) that I had much joy to listen at. Lets start with Ms Asher. Her topic was "wither nature or culture - imaginaries of ethnic movements in Latin America". She started by talking of a conference in Lima earlier this year, which addressed how deeply connected humans are to nature. She showed pictures of offerings and small rites of honouring the nature spirits while opening the conference.

She said that we need to understand the romantic ethnicity of culture while still it is important to be critical when studying this things. Furthermore we (the audience) learned about organisations like "matamba y guasa", black woman that works with food and medical plants to ensure the subsistence and health needs of the community as well as the biodiversity growing in the area. Much of her study was conducted in Colombia. 

The lecture continued into an enriched discussion, where we among other things brought up rhetoric questions as what exactly is the significance of an ethnic group and when do we become one? As well as what happens when we start labelling ourselves into a certain folder? When is it good with categorisation and to place everything in a certain pile of information?

In the break I talked with a women that had done a lot of studies about mines in Peru and Ecuador. She told me that in Ecuador it was more acknowledged to refer to "indigenous" groups than in Peru, where people more referred to themselves as "farmers". 

Ms Asher brought up the difference in referring to "eachselves"  (my word) to "afro displecados" and "afros decendos", which directly translated means displaced Africans and descendant from Africa. The first one can be noticed in Afrodes, an association for displaced afro-Colombians.

Another important note I did from her lecture was that of subsidies, that even if a country in the world decides to subsidies some other country, it may not in the end become as much as it sounds like. The money does seldom come as papernotes and coins (or figures in the bank), but as helicopters and more material things... 

I think this is what I would like to say about this certain lecture. I found it most interesting and it was a pleasure to listen to the subject. Thank you.

"Earth - a visual guide"

On this matter, I would like to recommend a book with beautiful pictures of the world. It is called "Earth: a visual guide" and can be found here.

Illustrative photos - climate change

Ok so lets take an intermezzo from the reflection posts of the conference and inserts some illustrative and beautifully done pictures of the matter.

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First one out is from OECD's roundtable discussion in New York 2009.

Second picture....

...and the last one kind of connect the other two....

but all of them could generate a great discussion and analysis....

 

Nature, Poverty and Power

Last week I attended a conference in Uppsala. It was organised by Devnet which is a network for researchers and students in sustainable development. It is financed by Sida and based on Uppsala University and Swedish University of Agricultural Science. Devnet was created in 2008. Last year (2009) I was there with a lot of my fellow master students. We were invited since our lecturer was one of the key note speakers. When I got an invitation this year, I decided to go with a friend of mine since the programme seemed to be promising. 

If I compare the conference of this year to the one last year, you could see that it has grown. More people, better planned and organised. Students and researchers had come specially just to attend those two days here in Uppsala. There were people from Italy, Spain, Costa Rica, Brazil, France, India, US, Vietnam, South Africa and many more. 

I had decided to attend the second and the sixth parallel session. The first one was during Thursday and was named "community-based and community-driven natural resource management - a tool for poverty reduction and sustainable development". This one I picked to go to since I was curious to know more about it. I think my master programme has focused more on rural development than on the natural resource management, so I figured it might be a good chance to get deeper understanding of concrete examples. This session had a high attendance. Unfortunately had one of the speakers been cancelled. But there was still three other ones. 

One of them talked about the management of irrigation in Vietnam, and how to decentralise it from government level to the locals. 

Another one discussed the community based organisation of forest management. This lecturer brought in Agrawal a lot, which was an author that we used much in one of our master courses. Many students felt his book was a bit hard to grasp, and that especially that course could have become more educative by bringing in more than one main course literature. Even though I through that course got to know about Elinor Ostrom.

(Swedish articles in online news about her, click here and here.)

Here is another way to depict the tragedy of the commons....

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There was also a researcher talking about his study of small-scale fisheries. I enjoyed to see his illustrative networks of how the fishermen was relating to each others. But many of the audience was asking questions like; how did your research influence the society that you studied? Did you go back afterwards? But if they themselves did not perceive any problems of how they lived, what influence did your study do then? Perhaps it would have been better if you would not have done it? Why did you do your research? 

I find this questions of importance of relevance. Not to say the least that perhaps we want to help, but to we do the research to get an examination or a report done or do we do it because we sincerely would like to make a difference? Do we do it because we want to enforce our own perspectives which we believe is the superior one, or do we do it because of learning of others? I have been told that we can never escape ourselves, being objective, we are in some ways always biased and we need to be aware of this. Although I feel very humble and that I still have so much left to learn. I hope I will continue feel like this when I start going to the field. 

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The second day I went on a parallel session called "Cities, marginalisation, rights and citizenships". Many of the speakers were human geographers just like me, but there were also some anthropologists among us. I enjoyed to hear talks about the importance of having your own land and area to live in. We heard about female waste scavengers in Brazil, private land owners in Niger who started their own peri-urban societies by dividing the land. Furthermore, we could listen to different ways of aiding civil society by certain policies...

Even if this session did not had so many people in the audience, I think it was the most interesting and vibrant discussion of all the sessions that I went to. It was nice to hear about settlements and urban space, I miss to study that. I believe rural and urban is so connected, and within my master programme it is so focused on the countryside. Which is interesting of course, but I still lack the discussion of the city dwellers. We talk more about the outskirts of the city and the marginalisation of the people in shanty towns. So it was delightful to meet a lot of human geographers on this conference and hear them talk.

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To round up this post I would like to talk a bit about the key note speakers. We had one that discussed about the importance to knowledge the climate change, this lecturer did unfortunately not generate so much of my interest. Perhaps it was since it felt like a topic spoken of so much, and that he did not need to defend it since among those that I speak with it is more or less a general statement. 

For those of my readers that understand Swedish, it was a great article about this a few days ago. It brought up the importance of changing mentality as a way of not apathetic ignoring it, and why some of us perhaps have started to shut our eyes of climate change. By discussing with psychologists, the article stated that people do not pay attention so much because of (among other) following thoughts "it does not happen here" and "we can't see it" since it is happening sucessively so we adapt to the small changes and get blind of the bigger picture. For instance photos and elderly peoples accounts are great to illustrative this. Here is some photos of ice melting and change of glaciers...

Blomstrandbreen Glacier, Norway 1918 and 2002, more info here.

Glacier in Patagonia Argentina, top 1928 and bottom 2004. More photos here.

 

Himalayas 1921 and 2007, more info here.

"...a spoonful of sugar helps...."

Have been humming on this song all day long.... :)

Pics of today

Julstök

 

Today have been such a beautiful day. I have been on Yule fayres in town and then been home baking typical cookies and buns. Friends came and went to help do a little bit; both to make 'em and to eat 'em. Still it was lots left....

 ...and here is a Swedish winter song which I used to sing
or play on flute every yule time - it's so beautiful...

...and here is a favourite English carol,
something to practice (notes) on my harp. :)

A positive attitude, if I may...

I have kind of got these songs on my mind.... The three first of them are Swedish artists, first one out is Miskovsky and her song from the album Falling Water released in 2003.

The second one is Ternheims song from her album Separation  Road released in 2006.





















The last Swedish song is this one, from Lisa Ekdahls album
Give me that slow Knowing Smile released in 2009.


Lisa Ekdahl  - Session acoustique
Uploaded by EVENE. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

 ...and this just because....

Spanish movies...

...is a way to further develop language skills.The following trailers seems to be good ones...

The Power of the song

The Power of Their Song Trailer #1 from John Summa/John Travers on Vimeo.




Mar Adentro


This movie I watched a long time ago, but I still remember the beauty of it.

Winter 2010/2011 first shots

It started last Tuesday. The wind blow so cold that I said to one of my friends, that "Mr. Winter had breathed upon us and kissed us". :) An hour or two later it all began. Thin and tiny, one by one, the snow flakes fell....

 

Within some hours they had covered the ground. The snow was pretty good so I could make a snow ball and throw the first one on my friend.... She is from the north of Sweden (and I am from the south) so I think she was a bit annoyed that I did it before her...and it started a little snow ball war...that was fun. :)

It was amazing how much it snowed the first time of this winter season. The day after, the world (or more, Uppsala :) ) was covered in more than 10 centimetres layer of snow. And it stayed around.

Even if it started to melt, I could still enjoy a beautiful lunch in the sunshine by the pond. The water was frozen. But it was nothing compared to what faced me this morning when I looked out of my window.

It has become cold and winter is here to stick around for a while.

Interesting...

You can read about it here on BBC news.

I would be curious to know how they have been able to keep these photos a secret for a whole year... Perhaps this movie will increase peoples knowledge....I so wish that they could live peacefully without interferance of the modern world, such as illegal log cutting and mine searching... But I also know that the demands from the west grows in the pace of the increasing population... This dilemma is partly why I began to study the things I did... I would like to understand the world better... How we became as we are and how we think today...and perhaps think how we could shape it to the better for the future...not just for human beings but also for everything living and growing here... 

Here is another clip about the previously unknown people living in the Amazonas.

My world...

Cool song....I like it.

Lets do some country...

music.... Is this not a lyric that lifts your spirit?!
The little girls reminds me so much of my sweet nieces...

Uppsala Castle

It starts to get darker and darker now. But municipalities and companies do their best to light up the city.... Here is a very creative, beautiful, funny and cool way to use the dark of the night.... It will be there between end of October 2010 to end of November 2010.

Daughter of the sea...

"One time a sea-girl, always a cegal...." ;)

C's quote

The Afro-viking....

love the concept of this dude - go spread some love mister! :)

Soon it is November! :)

If I would still be living in the very south of Sweden it would mean a lot of foggy and grey days.....bare leaves....but this year autumn has been great in Uppsala. The leaves have been burning in all this various colours, slowly falling down...like golden coins...to the ground. Now it lays there, waiting for someone to just throw them up and around.... swirling like a dance of the season of the red, orange, yellow, brown.... burning our senses and making us dress in wool and drink lots of tea....so had a little autumn feast the other night and we all brought something to the table. 

 Then the only Canadian person got to make a pumpkin,
which we named crazy Jack. :) He is now laughing
away all bad spirits in the dark.

Shakira, so beautiful it is,

the new song....

"I'll be there...."

Ok, this might become a radiokiller....but so far it's pretty decent.... I like the beats and version of it (originally it's a Jackson song)

Orientalism

I find this recap of Edvard Saids Orientalism interesting and nice with comments as well as photos/video clips.

Philosophy in 5 min...

For my fellow students in Philosphy of Science.... perhaps this gets us in a better spirit. At least it made me smile. :)

For my Spanish...

...speaking friends who step by step introduce me to new words and culture.
(loved the ceviche, definitely a favourite dish for me, thanks for introducing that....)

Mikel Erentxun - Manana

Minha princesa brasileira...

do Rio....

McKennitt - CD nov 2010!

I am so excited!!!! Lorrena McKennitt is releasing a new CD the 12th November (in Sweden). It seems to be a really great one!!! Preview the tracks here. For those following my blogs, knows that I love music and the artists differs. But McKennitt has always been a true companion for me in my life, especially her CD the book of secrets which is just amazing. It was my first encounter of her music, I remember that I was 15 years old, in late autumn...Stockholm in the end of the 1990's...found this little pagan store that brought me into a new path which in a way felt so familiar and right....and in the background they played the soft tunes of this magical and soothing music...

Anyways, in this new cd she sings traditional celtic songs in her own special style. But I mean can it become better?!....celtic songs and McKennitt ..... *me like* I can't wait to get a copy...

Ohw...and for those that have missed this great artist... here she explains a bit about her music and interests, her words:

"I am also in awe of music’s unique capacity to induce and enhance moods and psychological states and the great linkages it has to physiology. This is illustrated in the field of music therapy, not only for humans but also for animals. I think of dairy farmers who pipe in classical music to induce cows to give more milk, or of a recent film set in Mongolia called The Story of the Weeping Camel, in which a mother camel rejects her calf only to reclaim it following a musical ritual. I think of the MIT professor who uses MRI scans to study the impact on the brain of the meditation and chanting of Kundalini yoga.

 I am deeply interested in these connections between physiology and our spiritual and psychological beings, and the many events and experiences that inspire us. Surely some creativity comes from this set of intersections."

Some wise words from the lady in question....

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"Be compassionate and never forget how to love.

Think inclusively.

Reclaim noble values such as truth, honesty, honour, courage.

Respect one's elders and look to what they have to teach you.

Be empathetic.
 

Look after the less fortunate in society.
 

Promote and protect diversity.
 

Respect the gifts of the natural world.
 

Set your goals high and take pride in what you do.
 

Cherish and look after your body,
and, as the ancient Greeks believed,
your mind will serve you better.
 

Put back into the community
as there have been those before you
have done the same and you are reaping what they sowed.
 

Participate in and protect democracy. It does not thrive as a spectator sport.
 

Undertake due diligence in everything.
 

Seek balance and space, and solitude.
 

Don't be afraid to feel passionate about something.
 

Learn to be an advocate and an ambassador for good.
 

Be mindful of your limitations.
 

Indulge and nurture your curiosity as it will keep you vital.
 

Take charge of your life and don't fall into the pit of entitlement.
 

Assume nothing and take nothing for granted.
 

Things are not necessarily what they seem."

Loreena McKennitt

Spivak

This is one of the philosophers that we have brought up within our philosophical science class. In my curiosity about her and thoughts about post-colonial theory and the context of subaltern...here is a lecture I found that she did. It's one hour long and then half an hour discussion with the audience. I find her talk especially captivating the last 20 mins (40th minute and onwards) when she starts to talk about the new subaltern as a transformation into property. Among other things, she notice the indigenous knowledge that turns into intellectual property, and the conversation of indigenous knowledge into data. She says that it is a difference between knowing and learning, between describing a card game and describing a card game well enough to lose in order to teach.

More quaokes from following lecture is;

"the de-trivialism of the humanities"

"logic does not belong to Europe alone"

"who will educate the educated"

"let us not accuse, let us not excuse"

"we must nurture the abstract read, transcendent it into reason by recognise that"

But let's listen to her....

For a shorter clip where Spivak comments the world of today, see this interview where she are asked upon the green movement in Iran.

For me... :)

I have put up a lot of songs for friends or special new acquaintances whom I am happy to have been introduced to. But today I will put up a song just for me. Because we need to look after ourselves, if we don't care about the 'I' but just about the 'you', atleast then take care of yourself for others. Be nice and learn to like  your features and appreciate the company of yourself, accept good and bad. If we need to have energy for others, we first need to be strong and balanced ourselves. Love and empathy not just for the next of kin but also for who the person which are 'I' am.... Within the reflection of a lover, a friend, another being we may sometimes glimpse who we are, and to not be a big burden or a bother, we really do need to be good to the personal being of I. So here is one of my own favourite songs....

Existentialism

Since I am writing and thinking about -ism's right now... Here is a nice little documentary from Mr. Gasana.

Sophie's world

Relating to the previous post I made, I would like to bring up this Scandinavian movie based on the book called Sophie's World. I remembered that I watched it during high school and it was really captivating me. One of my favourite subjects by then was also philosophy so it was good entertainment. The movie is about this girl who gets face to face with influential philosophers in history. Here, let's watch the trailer for it...

Philosophy of sciences and Derrida

So I am in hard core study period for my exam...or atleast a bit more structured after I had my furnitures  to change places. It's funny how you always get creative just before a big writing up comes up, although it actually does help for my motivation.

Today we had a seminar on poststructuralism and postmodernism. Among others we discussed deconstructions and the French philosopher Derrida. He was very influential in the concept of post structuralism. In some way he appeals to me and I would like to know more about his discussions about language, inspired by the structuralist and linguist Saussure.

There was a documentary done in 2002 about Derrida, which I find appealing for those that as me are more curious about him.


But there is a short version of the movie here....

The books of Derrida that might one day belong to my book shelf is these two: 

This first one could be found digitally and be bought here.

The second one is this one, also in digitally version.

Let's fly away...

...and since I am now dedicating songs to dear friends of mine, here is another bit more vintage....but you could also hear Rose and Jack sing it in the movie Titanic (btw, did you know that Titanic was built in Belfast?).

So here is the song performed by Blanche Ring.  

 

 (Hehe, and J, u know, did even find the sheets/chords for it, in case we wanna learn how to play it ;)).



And can't help myself than to just adore the style of the 1920's..... :)

"Write about love"

The Scottish music group Belle and Sebastian is releasing a new cd in these days called write about love. I have never really listened at them before, but I don't know why since they are really good. Listen at this one for instance (this is for my dear friend Catha):

Chocolat

Just because I love chocolate and this movie has got a lot of great actors and performances....

Latin America and Spanish lessons...

I would really much like to go to Latin America for a while. So between methodology studies at uni., I am learning Spanish and preparing for a master thesis research there. I found this little documentary movie about south of America, that I figured would give me some kind of introduction to this area in the world. 

A friend of mine also gave me this great link for Spanish lessons on internet. I find it very entertaining and a nice way to learn a new language on. It completes my classes and language discussions with friends who are fluent in Spanish.

Friendships...

There is so many nice people out there. People to have a tea with, some to go to cinema with, others to have deep existentialistic philosophic discussions, friends to party with and to laugh with, and even so a few more for studies, making dinner and to raise your voice with... But sometimes in life, you just meet those stars that like every aspect of you, love you whichever side you would show. They don't doubt you, but support you and give you love, respect, trust. Someone to laugh, relax and feel safe with.

When I was a teenager we were a very tight friendship group of four, and we all - curiously enough - were having different elements. It was like our group was balanced. Four people driven by water, fire, earth and air combined with a bound of loving spirit. 

Just when I was in doubt, I find myself having the same kind of setting with friends again - and I am happy. 

So here is some songs for friendships...
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Annie - It's a hard knock life (1982)
Note: Jay-z also did a funky version of this




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Hello Saferide - My best friend (2005?)
Note: Swedish artist, new album released this year


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Alphaville - Forever young (1984?!)

 
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...just because I love dancing,  Dirty Dancing 1 (1987) was not able to emded...so here is a great song from the second Dirty Dancing called Havanan nights (2004), which btw is a great dance movie....

Yerba Buena - Guarija (I love you too much)
Album Follow me (2007)





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There is a part in one of the seasons of Ally McBeal where she tries to find her song. She walks down the street to her work and goes through different beats to find her special one that makes her feel good and energised...I love that part, but am unsure of the song (perhaps this one?) and the episode...too bad... But here is my song anyways...my absolute favourite song which I sing when I am on the best of moods... although I use to sing "how wonderful life is, when your by my side"...

Molin Rouge - Your song (2001)

Before you watch this I might need to tell you a bit about this movie. It's about the French place Moulin Rouge and a story with a lot of dancing, about love. In this scene Satine (played by Nicole Kidman) has mistaken Christian for the duke and therefore tries to seduce him. The duke has a lot of money and was going to fund a show in Moulin Rouge but wanted to go out with the star Satine. So she was told to be a bit willingly...but it becomes a bit funny (and she will eventually fall in love with Christian instead which is not good since she has to be true to the duke for the funding of the place) when she doesn't realise her mistake. But I put up this scene because I love the song. When I was showdancing in my teenage I danced to another great song from this film.... but now - your song.