Meredith:

Thanks for this. I am interested in what other people are doing along 
the lines of preparing for the reality of academic life (and life in 
general) under Trump's administration.

One thing that occurs to me is that critical scholars might want to 
think about reevaluating their habits of and tools for communication. Do 
you know of anybody doing workshops or teach-ins around this sort of 
thing, e.g. using encryption for communications? It seems plausible to 
me that critical scholars may become targets, and perhaps it would be 
useful to work together to better and more securely communicate with one 
another. I have some minimal experience with some of this, but I'd 
definitely like to learn more.

I am also curious what people are thinking about in terms of mutual aid 
and self-help. It seems pretty reasonable to expect that lots of people, 
graduate students and adjuncts included, will lose their health 
insurance and that there will likely be serious structural changes to 
programs like Medicaid (which the new administration promises to turn 
over to the states for management). Others here have alluded to efforts 
to stockpile certain medications and so on. I'm very keen to learn more 
about these sorts of concrete efforts to prepare for the worst and try 
to mitigate some of the likely awful outcomes for vulnerable people on 
the list and off.

Best,
Reed

On 2016-11-14 12:10, Meredith Palmer wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I find the fact that Nica's reaction has been reduced to tone-policing
> and pretty distracting and petty, and quite frankly a continuation of
> the same misogyny she and others on this list have written against.
> Reducing the conversation to either telling women to temper their
> reactions when a male sexist rapist is our president-elect, or to
> semi-anonymous theoretical musings on this listserv are, to say the
> least, not constructive. Perhaps, concerning the latter point, I hold
> different estimations of academic listservs than others.
> 
> I am on other scholarly listservs that are currently circulating
> resources on how to train professors to protect undocumented students,
> help report sexual assault, and prevent some of Trump's suggested
> appointments, as well as advice on caring for our threatened
> loved-ones. I think putting aside relatively anonymous theoretical
> assessments of the situation, and policing each other's e-mail tone,
> it is far more vital to begin preparing for what is coming in very
> real and tangible ways.
> 
> My two cents,
> Meredith
> 
> On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Alex Mahoudeau
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Dear all,
>> 
>> A small anodine word from a friendly reader of this whole debate:
>> the fact that many observers of political life have been properly
>> shocked to see the results of this event maybe could serve as a
>> reminder of the importance of exercing caution in analysis. We are
>> but six days after the event, and the business of understanding is a
>> tedious and slow one, unfortunately. As much as hypotheses are
>> useful in such situations, and many very valid ones have been
>> exchanged these last days, I am feeling increasingly afraid of
>> speed-thinking (and I am not accusing anyone in this list to be a
>> speed-thinker).
>> 
>> In other words, I am just worried that our collective desire for
>> explanation incites us all to put the carriage before the horses.
>> This is probably a huge truism, but it has been a few days since I
>> noticed I was unable to answer other people's remarks with anything
>> but truisms and these are less and less satisfactory to me.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> AM
>> 
>> 2016-11-14 17:39 GMT+00:00 William Payne <[log in to unmask]>:
>> 
>>> One comment from this conversation has stuck out for me in terms
>>> of its clarity in describing the present historical moment in
>>> which Donald Trump has become president of the United States:
>>> “Rape culture won, again,” said a list-member.  I find myself
>>> returning to this short statement and find that it resonates over
>>> and over in terms of getting at some semblance of the meaning of
>>> the U.S. election and its outcome.  Lillian Brown from Indiana
>>> University brought this observation to the listserve and I would
>>> like to suggest that it deserves greater attention.
>>> 
>>> I was reminded of the research of Rita Segato, a criminologist,
>>> who has studied the killing of women in Ciudad Juarez, horrific
>>> violence invariably accompanied by sexual violence. As she
>>> outlines her theory of what has made that shattering of lives of
>>> poor, racialized women possible, she reminds her reader that rape
>>> always seeks an audience.  Sometimes, this means that violence is
>>> done with material witnesses, people present to provide
>>> recognition for the act of dehumanization.  But, she argues, even
>>> when the crime itself has no witness, the perpetrator always has
>>> his (and I use the gendered pronoun decidedly, for obvious
>>> reasons) audience in mind. And it is a participatory audience, she
>>> argues, one that shares in the act of violence, of dehumanization.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Although the term ‘rape culture’ has been relatively recently
>>> picked up in popular and academic discourse to get at something
>>> that many of us have witnessed, experienced, tried to understand
>>> and combat, it is worth noting that it is not a new term. Rather,
>>> I believe that it first emerged in the 1970s to get at the way in
>>> which those who are targeted with sexual violence are blamed for
>>> the violence that they experience, and to describe a normalizing
>>> function of society that minimizes or excuses behaviour and
>>> choices of men that is really nothing less than criminal. One of
>>> the key lessons of the movement to combat rape culture is that
>>> words matter, that media, law, and everyday language conspire to
>>> create this context in which impunity is allowed to reign.
>>> 
>>> Thanks to Brown’s post, I have started to reflect on the
>>> geopolitical cycle that we are in as really an iteration of these
>>> logics.  This comment as well as many others in this thread have
>>> reminded me that I value this listserve as a space that provokes
>>> me to think about the serious difficulties of our day in new ways.
>>> I would venture as well, that how we speak to one another on this
>>> listserve can either reproduce or undermine the logics that we
>>> question.
>>> 
>>> I came late to the academy, and so often feel out of place in
>>> these conversations, like I don’t have anything to offer that is
>>> further along than half-baked.  And this may be true in the case
>>> at hand as well. However, I do want to say that I have valued Raju
>>> Das's interventions even when I felt that he was missing a key
>>> piece of the puzzle.  Except for the elite few, most of us who
>>> came of age in the 1980s actually missed out on a serious
>>> consideration of the ways in which Marxian analysis is useful in
>>> casting light in the shadows of the violent world in which we
>>> live, and so I have been grateful for his teaching and for that of
>>> others like Himani Bannerji, also at York, who have given me some
>>> insight at this late stage in my life into the value of seeing the
>>> world through the lens of class relations.  Their teaching has
>>> helped me to complicate my own focus on gender, sexuality,
>>> colonialism, race and other frames of reference that I still think
>>> are key to understanding how the world functions.
>>> 
>>> Yet even beyond that, I would say that I agree with those thinkers
>>> about rape culture - and with Raju in his recent post - that words
>>> matter.  And so I recognize the legitimacy of Raju’s protest
>>> that being told to ‘shut up’ or other such utterances are the
>>> sort of language that does not bring us closer to the world we all
>>> want. I do know that sometimes when we use strong words it is
>>> meant to communicate how much the other has impacted us with their
>>> words and actions. And certainly, I have used language in this
>>> way. Yet recognizing this in myself I don’t think is the same as
>>> saying that this is the sort of behaviour that will help us build
>>> the community that will sustain us. Ranu Basu, also of York
>>> University, speaks about ‘painful knowledge’, a sort of
>>> epistemology that far too many of us gain precisely because of the
>>> way things are, because of the violence we experience personally
>>> – though she notes that the parsing out of this kind of
>>> knowledge is not done in equal measure because the relentless
>>> harm-doing in the world is not meted out equally. I am hoping that
>>> we can collectively work on ways to reduce the amount of painful
>>> knowledge gained through participation in this listserve even as
>>> we seek to share other forms of knowledge.
>>> 
>>> wil
>>> 
>>> WIL PAYNE
>>> PHD CANDIDATE - CRITICAL HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
>>> GA for Knowledge Mobilization -
>>> Refugee Research Network
>>> York University, Toronto
>>> 
>>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>>> Twitter: @RefugeeResearch
>>> 
>>> -------------------------
>>> FROM: Raju J Das <[log in to unmask]>
>>> TO: [log in to unmask]
>>> SENT: Sunday, November 13, 2016 10:58 AM
>>> SUBJECT: What is going on?: incivility in academic discussions,
>>> and a Trumpist world outside
>>> 
>>> Let’s argue and counter-argue. Let’s agree and disagree. BUT
>>> IS IT A NICE THING TO SAY to people with whom we disagree to
>>> ‘shut up’ or to say that their view is ‘shit’, or similar
>>> such things? That attitude expressed in some of the recent emails
>>> is in line with the right-wing culture of authoritarianism that we
>>> are supposed to be critical of.
>>> 
>>> I REGISTER MY PROTEST against such an attitude, on behalf of
>>> myself and others who believe in the principle of the right to
>>> speak freely and to politely express dissenting views. I am hoping
>>> that those who manage the site/s will take note of this.
>>> 
>>> Apparently, my email about the US election outcome hurt some
>>> people’s feelings (and that email and/or some emails from others
>>> appeared to be a view from the ivory tower), implying, therefore,
>>> that the content of such emails is problematic. This is
>>> ‘MORAL’ POLICING of sorts. The epistemological status of a
>>> statement hardly depends on WHETHER IT CAUSES EMOTIONAL TRAUMA OR
>>> SOOTHES ONE’S HEART. If that were the case, geographers and
>>> others would long stop talking about the theory of capitalist and
>>> imperialist EXPLOITATION OR OF RACIAL OPPRESSION, because that
>>> theory must be causing trauma to the American and international
>>> bourgeoisie and their middle class spokespersons, and to the
>>> racists. And a view cannot be automatically dismissed BECAUSE IT
>>> ASKS PEOPLE TO THINK/ACT DIFFERENTLY. In fact, for many of us, our
>>> aim is to understand the world from the standpoint of changing it,
>>> and the latter presupposes A SYSTEMIC CRITIQUE OF THE WORLD AND OF
>>> EXISTING VIEWS ABOUT IT.
>>> 
>>> Please, please, please, LET US NOT USE IMPOLITE AND RUDE LANGUAGE
>>> if a view is presented that goes against our own views. Let us not
>>> try to curtail freedom of speech through moral policing of sorts
>>> or by other means. There are theoretical and political differences
>>> among us. Let's not create another layer of difference, one that
>>> is created by the use of rude words. WORDS MATTER.
>>> 
>>> One is ENTITLED to a view which sees the fundamental division in
>>> society as one that is based on race, gender and sexuality-based
>>> identities (and associated politics of recognition) rather than on
>>> class relations of capitalism which use and thus reinforce,
>>> divisions based on these identities. One is entitled to a view
>>> which sees the US election result dominantly on the basis of the
>>> race, gender and sexuality lens. One is also entitled to the idea
>>> that the fate of the majority of people permanently lies in the
>>> hands of a bourgeois party – the Democratic Party -- that might
>>> give small concessions now and then, while it not only facilitates
>>> the transfer of millions of dollars into the hands of THE TOP 1%
>>> causing massive immiserization of millions of Americans (men and
>>> women, whites and non-whites), but also kills thousands of people
>>> in IMPERIALIST WARS in weaker countries.  But please have the
>>> patience to hear the views that counter the above views. Such
>>> counter-views were expressed in my original post and in many other
>>> emails by other members of our geography community. POLITICS IS
>>> _ULTIMATELY_ ABOUT CLASS POLITICS, one that is deeply mindful of
>>> the attack of the system on workers who are socially oppressed on
>>> the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
>>> 
>>> It is interesting to see what some Democrats _are_ saying about
>>> the underlying class dynamics of the election result: ‘CLASS
>>> ANGER WON’ says Hank Sheinkopf who is a Democrat consultant, and
>>> ‘members [of trade unions] just don’t trust Democrats
>>> anymore’, says Yarmuth, a Democratic party politician from
>>> Louisville (NYT, Nov 10).
>>> 
>>> Those who are inclined to view the Democratic party favourably may
>>> wish to note that in the last three elections, while the votes for
>>> the Republican party have stayed more or less constant (approx. 60
>>> million), THE VOTES FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAVE BEEN SHRINKING.
>>> One prominent reason is this: anger of ordinary (working class)
>>> people against the attack on their livelihood is being expressed
>>> (mistakenly, yes) in their support for a right-wing party. Perhaps
>>> IF SANDERS WAS NOT CRUSHED by the Wall Street lady, Trump would
>>> not get the support he did. Interestingly, a larger % of
>>> lower-income people voted for Republicans in 2016 than in 2012,
>>> and a larger % of higher-income people voted for Democrats this
>>> time than last time.
>>> 
>>> It is interesting that when we are showing our disagreements among
>>> us here, and some listserv members unfortunately show their
>>> disagreements IMPOLITELY, people including in the Democratic
>>> establishment (e.g. Obama, Sanders, and trade union bureaucrats,
>>> etc.) are ‘uniting’ with (i.e. promising support to) Trump,
>>> POLITELY saying that they will all work with him and that they are
>>> ‘all on one team’ (these are the words of Mr. Obama, who had
>>> declared a few days ago that Trump was unfit to be the President).
>>> And with the Trump win, Wall Street is celebrating and salivating
>>> (with its high DOW NUMBERS which have now surpassed the numbers
>>> from August). Trump is, of course, putting together a transition
>>> team that is stuffed not only with his family members but also
>>> with the representatives of big business and with right-wing
>>> bigots (who are known for their reactionary stance on abortion and
>>> other social issues).
>>> 
>>> Here is the good news though. Mr. Trump, who is the
>>> President-elect WITHOUT WINNING A POPULAR VOTE (this is happening
>>> for the fifth time in the last 240 years) and who received the
>>> least votes of any candidate from either of the parties since
>>> 2000, is already facing GRASSROOTS DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST HIM.
>>> Some of us will hope that it is partly on the basis of those
>>> grassroots actions and similar other actions that the collective
>>> consciousness of American society, with a long history of popular
>>> struggles against injustice, will move to the Left of the current
>>> TWO-PARTY BOURGEOIS SYSTEM. Note: 99 MILLION DID not vote at all
>>> or voted for a third party (each of the two main parties got
>>> roughly 60 million).
>>> 
>>> Once again: what is truly needed is a mass movement, guided by a
>>> democratically-organized party, that demand that society’s
>>> resources be placed under the democratic control of the masses,
>>> that champions the interest of skilled and unskilled workers and
>>> small-scale producers, including the right to a decent living,
>>> that unconditionally defends the democratic rights of men and
>>> women, of immigrants and native-born people, and of people of
>>> different races, and that absolutely protects women and other
>>> socially oppressed groups from bodily and other forms of violence,
>>> and that immediately stops American imperialist interventions on
>>> weaker nations. THE QUESTION TO ASK IS, once again: to what extent
>>> is critical and left human geography consistent with such a vision
>>> or a similar vision?
>>> 
>>> Raju
>>> Raju J Das, York University
> 
> --
> 
> Meredith A. Palmer
> 
> Ph.D. Student
> Department of Geography
> University of California, Berkeley