User:Mamtamanhas/sandbox

Extractivism - How I will contribute and bibliography

I plan to expand the "social impacts" and "political implications" section of extractivism and talk more specifically on the direct effects it has on indigenous individuals. I want to focus on how the physical destruction of the land, spiritually affects indigenous people and is a form of violence and colonialism against indigenous peoples. I also want to show how First Nation peoples in Canada have their agency in these instances and have been resisting these practices for decades. I will be adding a case study of a Canadian example of extractivism to show how these practices are happening all over the world and not just South America.

Bibliography

 1. Willow, Anna J. Indigenous ExtrActivism in Boreal Canada: Colonial Legacies, Contemporary Struggles, and Sovereign Futures. Humanities. 2016, 5, 55

 2. Alberto Acosta. “Extractivism and Neoextractivism: Two Sides of the Same Curse.” In Beyond Development: Alternative Visions from Latin America. Edited by Miriam Lang and Dunia Mokrani. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 2013, pp. 61–86. 

 3. Henry Veltmeyer, and James Petras. The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century. London: Zed Books, 2014.

 4. “Resistance Recognized: Grassy Narrows' Blockade Wins Award.” CBC news, CBC/Radio Canada, 25 May 2015, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/grassy-narrows-12-year-blockade-against-clear-cutting-wins-award-1.3085692.

 5. “10 Years Later: Grassy Narrows Blockade.” Amnesty International Canada, 4 Mar. 2014, www.amnesty.ca/blog/10-years-later-grassy-narrows-blockade.

Article Evaluation

I chose the article on Wikipedia about the Orient.

The information in the article was relevant to the topic and it was very informative. I found it interesting how there was large section in the article that explained how Orient means east or sunrise in different languages, correlating to the geographic location. This location usually being the Middle East and Eastern Asia. However, it was a bit confusing to read with all the brackets. There was also a lack of citation in this part of the article. The only link it did include was to Chinese characters where the website was hard to follow. At the end of the article there was an indication that a citation was needed for the fact directional related to religious buildings. The rest of the article has pretty good citations and the sources are credible. It does not seem to be apart of a wikiproject.

I found it interesting how the Orient started out as a more positive word and then through the process of colonization came to have a negative connotation. However, as the article points out some people still do not find it offensive. It also talks about how the Orient geographically has moved around. This was similar to the discussion of the Middle East that we had in class where there isn’t one clear geographic location for the Middle East. Much like the “Orient” there is not one place that can be defined as that. Even though most people generally associate it with East Asian countries and culture, we also know in a postcolonial context it includes the Middle East.

The map that is the only graphic on the page I found a little confusing. It colours part of Asia, mainly eastern Asia. However, in the caption it also states that the Middle East is part of this definition of the Orient in "archaic terms." It goes to show how difficult it is to define this word. However, at the top of the page there is a suggestion to merge this article to the "Eastern World" article. The Eastern World article is much more broad in describing what is considered "east" or the Orient. Combining the two articles might be a way to stop the confusion I mentioned earlier with the term.

The article for the most part seems neutral, there is no glaring bias. It is mainly talking about the historical progression of the word. It doesn’t really talk about how the "Orient" it self feels about the word. The voices of those who are deemed the Orient and how they react to that title given to them are not present in this article. We know that the word isn’t allowed in US legislation because of the racist connotation to it but we don’t actually hear from the people that are called the Orient. Maybe that's something that can be added.

The biggest conversation going on in the "Talk" page is about the meaning of the word itself. Many people are also debating on how to keep the article neutral and unbiased. Many are arguing how the term “orient” is not assumed to be offensive and users are being too politically correct. This is probably why in the introduction they outline how the word Orient can be culturally insensitive and derogatory but also some see it as inoffensive. However, there is no citation for that.

We talked about Edward Said’s definition of the Orient and how it relates to his concept of Orientalism in class. The Wikipedia article does mention that but it also goes into detail about the many other ways the word Orient is used and in different languages what it means. It also speaks a lot to the history of the word and how it came to be. It doesn’t really recognize the inherent person that could be called or is the Orient.