Another update, this time in relation to the Place Making Essay discussed in Part 2 of this series —
To backtrack a bit, and provide some context I probably should have supplied in Part 1, the objectives of this course are to:
- Introduce students to concepts and methods used by social scientists and others to explain globalization.
- Develop the skills needed to understand complex problems related to global interconnectedness.
Students’ essays did, with varying degrees of success, thoughtfully respond to the assignment’s two prompts:
- How does the process by which an object is made affect its ability to create a sense of place for people who use that object?
- Has globalization altered the meaning of places or of the objects within them? Why? If so, how have meanings changed?
I did not see much discussion about the ways in which globalization affects communities, in the sense of “place making.” In retrospect, this is another example of me assuming, incorrectly, that students will follow ideas down the rabbit hole like I do — examining the more nebulous systemic implications of narrowly-defined events. If I use this assignment in the future, I might change the prompt to something like:
- People assign meanings to the physical spaces they use. How do these meanings change when built environments and the objects within them are globalized? How are people’s spatial interactions affected? Do communities benefit? Why?
Despite horizons in students’ writing that were narrower than I would have liked, I think the essay unexpectedly hit my second course objective, through the interaction with students in the ART 202 course and the IYRS Digital Materials and Fabrication program. These interactions required students in my course to communicate effectively with complete strangers who had, in many cases, unfamiliar perspectives and different goals. A prerequisite for learning how to solve problems that arise from global interconnectedness is actually connecting with people who are different, and that happened in this assignment.
Links to all posts in this series: