Decolonizing
Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith. The
most academic of the books on this list, and not for the faint of heart and
stamina, Smith writes about methodology and research theory in terms of its
abuse towards colonized peoples throughout history and the world. It is a work
of Decolonization Theory, and confronts
how scientific, research, and academic communities have exploited and
misrepresented indigenous peoples. Gaining perspective on the lives and
experiences of those harmed by colonization, and understanding my privilege in
the colonization process, is a difficult but worthwhile road to follow.
Getting Stoned with
Savages and Sex Lives of Cannibals by
J. Maarten Troost. Troost’s travelogues of his experiences living in Vanuatu
and Fiji are somehow simultaneously breezy and insightful to island life.
Troost has proven himself to prefer digging in to local culture instead of
living in an expat enclave, and the mishaps and misunderstandings that follow
are reflective of Peace Corps service.
How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney. Essential for comprehending and
critically viewing the effects of colonialism and subsequent aid and
development work in the developing world. Again, having a critical
understanding of Western impact on the nation you will serve will make you a
better volunteer.
Ishmael by Daniel
Quinn. Ishmael is a young hopeful’s
education and manifesto to cultural criticism, basic sociology, and thirst for
social change. Presented as a surreal conversation between a man and a
telepathic gorilla, Ishmael is an
excellent primer for lessons in cultural history and social responsibility.
No god but God by
Rezla Aslan. Chances are you’ll be serving in an area of the world with a
strong Islamic presence. Understanding the religion’s history, evolution, and
current climate was enlightening for me as a volunteer. Aslan writes with a
multicultural, progressive bent, rich in resources and quoted material while
remaining accessible.
The Sparrow by
Mary Doria Russell. The Sparrow is a
science fiction novel about a group of scientists, anthropologists, and Jesuit
priests who are the first humans making contact with a new planet. Peace Corps
in space? The confusion in language barriers, cultural differences, and
progressing understanding of different vs worse/better mirrors Peace Corps experience.
The Spirit Catches You
and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. Fadiman’s work researching and
documenting the experiences of the Hmong people as they resettle in America
after long periods of transient life as refugees in South East Asia, and
specifically the cultural barriers they face in dealing with the Western
medical system is a brilliant illustration of social anthropology at work.
Medical practitioners, social workers
and the parents of an epileptic Hmong girl tangle over treatments, and
the cultural beliefs of illness and medicine differ wildly between each.
Vagabonding by
Rolf Potts. Not everyone can travel this way, not even all Peace Corps
Volunteers. But Potts offers some practical advice for how to travel purposefully, with an open mind and
thirst for experience. If you want to get more counterculture, I suggest going
deep with Ed Buryn’s Vagabonding in
America and Vagabonding in Europe and
Africa.
The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy. Conroy writes about his time teaching in an insular and impoverished South Carolina island community. He was motivated to take the job because of his interest in Peace Corps, and his both his struggles and joys over the year on "Yamacraw Island" mirror PCV experiences. From frustrations with infrastructure and institutionalized poverty, to the language barriers and cultural mishaps, its a reminder that America itself has plenty of need for development and service.
Wild by Cheryl
Strayed. A memoir of travel and growth, Strayed is a powerful, emotionally transformative
writer. At twenty six, she hiked the Pacific
Crest Trail alone and unprepared for how she would change. Just the
opening prologue—Strayed stranded on the Trail, barefoot, feeling a dozen
things at once—completely captivated me.
And some of my favorite motivations and meditations:
Education is one key to the future of women around the
world. They must become aware of their rights.
Shirin Ebadi
If you can’t see that your own culture has its own set of
interests, emotions, and biases, how can you expect to deal successfully with
someone else’s culture?
Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and
the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by
being shared.
Buddha
He would grow accustomed to feeling inexpert and out of his
depth. He became tolerant of the initial frustration of being unable to
communicate with grace or speed or humor. He learned to quiet the cacophony of
languages competing for dominance in his thoughts, to use pantomime and his own
expressive features to overcome barriers.
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered
once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something
important, about something real?
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we
must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own
treasures, with its own source of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.
Elie Wiesel, The
Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code
How is it that indifference, which on its own does no
apparent or immediate positive harm, ends by washing itself in the very horrors
it means to have nothing to do with? Hoping to confer no help, indifference
finally grows lethal; why is that?
Cynthia Ozick, “Of Christian Heroism”
We are in this world mutual hosts to each other.
Benjamin Franklin
…to travel is to brush up against the unfolding mystery of
the cosmos and—if we dare—to trust it, to see where it takes us.
Ben Brazil, “Serendipity”
…become aware of having wandered into a subtle network of
coincidence and serendipity that eludes explanation. On tiptoes, magic
enters…You find that you do not feel endangered in the “chaos” beyond the
patterns, on the contrary, you grow confident and exhilarated. The mystery of
life enormously enlarges, but surprisingly, there is no fear. The mystery is
suddenly understood to include you: this is the magic of vagabonding.
Ed Buryn, Vagabonding
in America
So you look at your life, and the two countries that hold
it, and realize that you are now two distinct people. As much as your countries
represent and fulfill different parts of you and what you enjoy about life, as
much as you have formed unbreakable bonds with people you love in both places,
as much as you feel truly at home in either one, so you are divided in two. For
the rest of your life, or at least it feels this way, you will spend your time
in one naggingly longing for the other, and waiting until you can get back at
least for a few weeks and dive back into the person you were back there.
Chelsea Fagan, “What Happens When You Live
Abroad”
Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what
we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial that what divides
us.
Sargent Shriver
[Let] go of your attachments: your attachment to being
right, to having total control, or to living forever. This process of letting
go is integral to the process of becoming whole.
Judith Lasater, Thirty Essential Yoga Poses
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