In moving forward with Podcasts and storytelling, with an Indigenous lens, I struggle from anger, frustration, sadness, hope, determination, resentfulness, thankfulness, and passion. My path, I believe, determines the impact I can and want to make for other Indigenous.
Listening to stories from Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, to Residential School experiences, and scrolling through the wide variety of Indigenous podcasts, illustrates the content and the people that share the need to tell stories, while listening to others stories. At times, I am doing so to justify feelings and emotions, and believe the podcasts offer knowledge, explanations, and experiences to those who do not know the history. The history of the land we are on, why people hang out outside of post offices and downtown buildings as lost souls, or how individuals choose one life over another life and choices having to be made to live traditionally or contemporary. These stories shared through podcasts are necessary to be told and heard.
This course and exploration on the topic and technology is an emotional journey for me and it is taking a toll mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I struggle to balance my life through this program and course, full time managing a business, raising my three beautiful and smart girls, being a wife, and taking moments to explore my artistic path that continues to drive me forward. I haven’t had a lot of time to explore literature related to podcasts and I’ve made the decision for now to spend less time learning about the technology and more time listening to podcasts with stories. It is the feelings, the understanding, and the emotions I get that are teaching me the value of storytelling through podcasts, for the future of Indigenous people. I have no quotes or references to offer at this time, only personal reflections.
– Myrna
A MALAT Student Blog
Hello Myrna –
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for having the courage to be so open. I appreciate your comments around how challenging the content can be and how we are both affected and effected by what we encounter.
I also appreciate the struggle around the many responsibilities we carry and how those also impact MALAT. There is guilt or imposter syndrome or embarrassment sometimes tied to how we measure our performance against that of our colleagues or what we expect of ourselves.
I admire you for realising where you are and being upfront about how you are making this assignment work for you. I too struggle with aspects of MALAT. In her article, aptly named “Grad School Blues,” Piper Fogg (2009) slams right into the mental health issues around post-grad work right off the top.
Graduate school is gaining a reputation as an incubator for anxiety and depression. Social isolation, financial burdens, lack of structure, and the pressure to produce groundbreaking work can wear heavily on graduate students, especially those already vulnerable to mental-health disorders. (Fogg, 2009 pg 1)
I wish you well as you tackle our final paper for LRNT 526. I feel it is important for you to know, you are not alone.
Katia
References
Fogg, P. (2009, February 20) Grad School Blues. Grad-School Blues Students fighting depression and anxiety are not alone. Chronicle of Higher Education. 55(24), B12-B16. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i24/24b01201.html
Hi Myrna
For me, podcasts can be so emotionally charged and sometimes I wonder about podcasts as a particular channel for causing harm. How podcasters tell stories for themselves and on behalf of others is so extremely different in terms of respect, consideration and exploitation. I know there is a phenomenon of crime podcasts for instance and some of the podcasters are respectful in their approach extending story to hopefully contribute to family closure but I have also heard other podcasts make light of tragedy and somehow create a community around crimes that have taken place and making light of them, using these tragedies as entertainment. All of this to say that I can understand the exhaustion with the modality you have chosen as it can be emotionally charged in so many different ways. Amber put a podcast padlet together for our cohort and I nominated a podcast called Coffee with My Ma by Kaniehtiio (Tiio) Horn who talks to her mom about her life. Her Ma was a radical activist and the stories are so amazing but also really steeped in humour of their family dynamics. I tell you about it because it is story driven but also uplifting.