Papers by Leslie Obol
Phenomenology & Practice, 2015
The idea of mentorship has become rather fashionable in academia today. Indeed mentorship is clai... more The idea of mentorship has become rather fashionable in academia today. Indeed mentorship is claimed, promoted and even mandated as something we can expect to experience as graduate students. Yet what is it really like to experience it? Drawing on concrete descriptions and phenomenological reflection I attend to graduate students’ actual experiences of mentorship (and not mentorship) to uncover aspects of the mentee experience for what it is rather than how it is claimed to be. Graduate students’ experiences reveal ways that mentoring moments variously escape us as somehow deficient or in excess of what we expect them to be. From a vantage that attends specifically to the mentee experience, points of reflection are offered for reimagining what the mentorship experience could become.
In S. Poyntz & J. Kennelly (Eds.), Phenomenology of youth cultures and globalization: Lifeworlds and surplus meanings in changing times. Routledge: Studies in Social and Political Thought Series.
This work was published as a book chapter here (note page numbers for citation): Robinson, L., Ma... more This work was published as a book chapter here (note page numbers for citation): Robinson, L., Mashakalugo, C., Obol, A.J., Cambre, MC. (2015). Phenomenological passports: Youth and experiences of place, mobility and globalization. In S. Poyntz & J. Kennelly (Eds.), Phenomenology of youth cultures and globalization: Lifeworlds and surplus meanings in changing times.154-179. Routledge: Studies in Social and Political Thought Series.
Like with so many other everyday things that become extensions of ourselves, we experience the mi... more Like with so many other everyday things that become extensions of ourselves, we experience the mirror—in that look and see moment—routinely and habitually. With unfaltering precision the mirror captures my face, immediately copying it back for me to examine. We owe, in part, our visual perceptions of self to the mirror's convenient and ready-at-hand presence. Yet, is there not more to the mirror than relentless reflection? Looking to poetic, mythical and experiential accounts of the mirror reveal how it can surprise, jolt, distort, fool, engulf or otherwise interpolate us. In this way, our encounters with the mirror seem to manifest variously and differentially. It is at once there and not there, tangible and intangible, solid and transparent, and truthful and deceitful.
Artivism is a creative and youthful way of being, thinking, doing and seeing in the world that hi... more Artivism is a creative and youthful way of being, thinking, doing and seeing in the world that hinges on an explicit commitment to intervening in personal and collective circumstances toward change. Artivists respond to injustices in our own lives by engaging any, and often multiple, artistic means in a shared effort to create for a better world.
But what are the challenges of belonging to a community of artivists while also seeking to become part of an academic community by pursuing a doctoral degree? What does it mean to be an artivist in an academic context premised on individual achievement and dominated by textual modes of expression? And how might artivism be enhanced by the kind of deep and sustained reflection made possible by the privilege of academic study? This dissertation aims to create a conceptual inter-space for the coming together of two worlds apart, that of artivism and academia.
By bringing scholarship to artivism and artivism to scholarship I address two main questions: (1) how can artivism mobilize and legitimize under-represented youth responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape our everyday lives? And, (2) how can artivist modes of inter-action and expression offer new responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape University life?
When I began my doctoral degree I had recently completed co-research with youth in Uganda. Together we co-designed a series of community murals in response to youth identified concerns including HIV/AIDS and prostitution. My final master of design thesis and accompanying gallery show were well received by my examining committee and the public, yet for me, the work was unfinished. I had become part of a group of youth interested in creating a sustainable space of resistance. The community has come to be known as artivists 4 life and as it turns out, our work is never finished. Thus, I was driven to pursue a doctoral degree through a desire to continue supporting the collective’s shared efforts of “creating for a better world” (artivists 4 life motto). Yet, through my experiences as a doctoral student I began observing many barriers to engaging in artistic, youth-driven co-research situated in Africa, particularly via the existing framework of graduate study prescribed by the Western University system. Thus, through the observation that certain knowledges and ways of knowing are undermined in the academy, including the artistic, collaborative, youthful and Ugandan/African, my initial objective of doing co-research with artivits 4 life was no longer enough. I became obligated to simultaneously re-politicize creative co-research to respond more adequately to the conditions of global coloniality and the unequal power relations it manifests in the academy—across knowledge systems, race, culture, class, gender and other differences.
This co-research is guided by decolonial perspectives including the understanding that our current world order is co-constituted by a colonial logic that serves to divide human beings and societies into less-than and more-than derivatives through the subjugation of knowledges and subjectivities in relation to their proximity to the hetero-Euro-centric norm. For decolonial thinkers, hope for an egalitarian pluriversal society lies in the struggles of the marginalized, the acceptance of their agency, and the willingness to be guided by their perspectives.
All the pieces of this dissertation embody an artivist consciousness that allows for constant re-adaptation to the broader questions of decolonial struggle that shape the realities of those with whom I collaborate. Circumstances addressed include youth unemployment, sexual exploitation, epistemic racism and the increasing corporatization of academia, particularly as these precarious conditions impact upon members of artivists 4 life, myself inclusive. Artivist inter-actions engage multiple forms of enunciation in the making of murals, comics, performances, workshops, creative writing, and any other creative means necessary to break from the
pervasive wiring of global coloniality and the wounds it inflicts upon us. These interventions work to re-conceptualize aesthetics, authorship and knowledge creation/dissemination in order
to shift power.
Throughout this dissertation fixed relations prescribed by modernity/coloniality—including the researcher-researched and the student-teacher—are re-imagined through the reconnection of creative practices to collective action. Through creative co-research with Ugandan youth and in one instance with fellow graduate students, I engaged with communities to unveil the mechanisms that sustain asymmetrical relations produced by modernity/coloniality in the places We/I dwell. Focusing on the structures of societal control serve to open new imaginaries for transcending power differentials by moving away from cultural mimicry toward the co-creation of new social formations not yet in existence. I hasten to add that emergent artivist epistemes and actions for such transformation require adjacent spaces to the academic project in order to support the co-creation of more adequate modes of inter-human contact premised on community self-determination. Overall, this dissertation enacts tactics for undoing disciplinary norms and other intellectually colonizing tendencies by allowing creative reflection and artistic action to flourish through an ethical commitment to making visible the invisible.
Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization: Lifeworlds and Surplus Meaning in Changing Times, 2015
Through hermeneutic phenomenological reflection guided by the Dutch phenomenological school of th... more Through hermeneutic phenomenological reflection guided by the Dutch phenomenological school of thought and Africana phenomenology we four authors work to improvise an emergent and comparative phenomenological stance for reflecting on the context of asymmetrical globalization. By drawing on intersecting experiences in and around a trip to Paris as a crystallizing event we work to open up new expressive potentials though phenomenological explorations and analysis where “youth” co-author a collaborative meaning-making process. The re-living of memories of our trip to Paris trigger us to question the very notion of globality—and the conundrum of its impossibility if it is meant to include everyone, if everyone can include a pluriversity of ways of knowing, doing and being. We ask how someone without preconceived notions of the Eifel tower might experience it which leads us to consider which subjectivities are (dis)allowed to make claims about the human condition. In the spirit of de-colonizing our sense-making we work to improvise a new relational ethics for knowledge generation and sharing in the context of Western globalization and its modern/colonial structure. By placing emphasis on the agency of Ugandan youth perspectives and our/their entry into engaged scholarship we offer points of departure for reimagining a new relational ethics for knowledge generation and sharing.
Phenomenology & Practice, 2015
The idea of mentorship has become rather fashionable in academia today. Indeed mentorship is clai... more The idea of mentorship has become rather fashionable in academia today. Indeed mentorship is claimed, promoted and even mandated as something we can expect to experience as graduate students. Yet what is it really like to experience it? Drawing on concrete descriptions and phenomenological reflection I attend to graduate students’ actual experiences of mentorship (and not mentorship) to uncover aspects of the mentee experience for what it is rather than how it is
claimed to be. Graduate students’ experiences reveal ways that mentoring moments variously escape us as somehow deficient or in excess of what we expect them to be. From a vantage that attends specifically to the mentee experience, points of reflection are offered for reimagining what the mentorship experience could become.
postcolonialtext.org, 2013
We as artists, activists and scholars examine identity and change processes within the Ugandan yo... more We as artists, activists and scholars examine identity and change processes within the Ugandan youth collective artivists 4 life. Dedicated to “creating for a better world” (motto) artivists 4 life are creating a new sense of sociability through the fusion of art and activism, leaving the margins to reposition themselves “at the center of the dynamic imagination of the African social landscape” (Durham 114). Using art in any necessary medium project members address issues of HIV/AIDS prevention and stigma, substance abuse and youth unemployment. Through their projects artivists 4 life are overcoming personal and collective circumstances and taking on responsibilities as proactive agents of communal change. Building on Asante’s notion of artivism and Sandoval’s differential consciousness this paper identifies a transformative pedagogical practice where critical consciousness emerges through collective action and artistic reflection. These processes have the potential to reframe experiences through counter-narratives authorizing youth to think and act otherwise.
About a decade ago, as a design student, my mind began to open up to the idea of design as a tran... more About a decade ago, as a design student, my mind began to open up to the idea of design as a trans-disciplinary problem-solving practice capable of improving life. Prior to this revelation, I had chosen a career path in design because I enjoyed art and was convinced that design, like art, was a creative discipline, yet one with better prospects of getting a job. Half way into my degree my outlook broadened as I became aware of participatory design. My understanding of this approach, which features the active involvement of community members in the design process, was greatly informed by the teachings of author and professor Jorge Frascara. My instructors encouraged practical explorations of participatory design through collaborative concept generation exercises and feedback sessions with the public. I learned that designing with people can change not only what we see but how we see it. I no longer consider design as simply a profession, but rather as a lens for seeing, being, knowing and doing in the world. My ever-evolving practice of designing for a better world has taken me to many unexpected places, close to home and far away, where many ordinary people's ways of living life have impressed on me in profound ways. In what follows, I share insights that can inform and elucidate participatory design processes with an eye to some broader notions of human experience. Because I believe in theory that is directly connected to action, I relate each teaching principle to specific design projects. My hope is to provoke a renewed dialogue around the potential role of design as an ethical practice committed to the creation of synergetic partnerships for improving lives both locally and globally.
Thesis Chapters by Leslie Obol
MDES Thesis, 2009
This research explores the impact of active participation in the design process for public health... more This research explores the impact of active participation in the design process for public health messages as a catalyst for community-building and youth empowerment. This is demonstrated through case studies whereby participants from four different youth groups took part in design workshops to identify and respond to critical public health issues. Through the nourishment of creative expression in an active learning process participants were equipped with knowledge and confidence, inspiring collective design responses. Collaborations among youth groups and with local artists informed the concepts for health messages and helped to build community. Designs were tested and refined through peer-to-peer communication and final messages were approved by public health professionals before being reproduced as large-scale outdoor paintings by the participants and local artists. Paintings were shown to appeal to and resonate among fellow youth audiences. A more sustainable impact, however, was shown as messages and processes became embodied within the participants and artists themselves, as they were empowered to become ongoing agents of change. Initial guidelines and considerations for youth-to-youth communication and sensitization were developed.
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Papers by Leslie Obol
But what are the challenges of belonging to a community of artivists while also seeking to become part of an academic community by pursuing a doctoral degree? What does it mean to be an artivist in an academic context premised on individual achievement and dominated by textual modes of expression? And how might artivism be enhanced by the kind of deep and sustained reflection made possible by the privilege of academic study? This dissertation aims to create a conceptual inter-space for the coming together of two worlds apart, that of artivism and academia.
By bringing scholarship to artivism and artivism to scholarship I address two main questions: (1) how can artivism mobilize and legitimize under-represented youth responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape our everyday lives? And, (2) how can artivist modes of inter-action and expression offer new responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape University life?
When I began my doctoral degree I had recently completed co-research with youth in Uganda. Together we co-designed a series of community murals in response to youth identified concerns including HIV/AIDS and prostitution. My final master of design thesis and accompanying gallery show were well received by my examining committee and the public, yet for me, the work was unfinished. I had become part of a group of youth interested in creating a sustainable space of resistance. The community has come to be known as artivists 4 life and as it turns out, our work is never finished. Thus, I was driven to pursue a doctoral degree through a desire to continue supporting the collective’s shared efforts of “creating for a better world” (artivists 4 life motto). Yet, through my experiences as a doctoral student I began observing many barriers to engaging in artistic, youth-driven co-research situated in Africa, particularly via the existing framework of graduate study prescribed by the Western University system. Thus, through the observation that certain knowledges and ways of knowing are undermined in the academy, including the artistic, collaborative, youthful and Ugandan/African, my initial objective of doing co-research with artivits 4 life was no longer enough. I became obligated to simultaneously re-politicize creative co-research to respond more adequately to the conditions of global coloniality and the unequal power relations it manifests in the academy—across knowledge systems, race, culture, class, gender and other differences.
This co-research is guided by decolonial perspectives including the understanding that our current world order is co-constituted by a colonial logic that serves to divide human beings and societies into less-than and more-than derivatives through the subjugation of knowledges and subjectivities in relation to their proximity to the hetero-Euro-centric norm. For decolonial thinkers, hope for an egalitarian pluriversal society lies in the struggles of the marginalized, the acceptance of their agency, and the willingness to be guided by their perspectives.
All the pieces of this dissertation embody an artivist consciousness that allows for constant re-adaptation to the broader questions of decolonial struggle that shape the realities of those with whom I collaborate. Circumstances addressed include youth unemployment, sexual exploitation, epistemic racism and the increasing corporatization of academia, particularly as these precarious conditions impact upon members of artivists 4 life, myself inclusive. Artivist inter-actions engage multiple forms of enunciation in the making of murals, comics, performances, workshops, creative writing, and any other creative means necessary to break from the
pervasive wiring of global coloniality and the wounds it inflicts upon us. These interventions work to re-conceptualize aesthetics, authorship and knowledge creation/dissemination in order
to shift power.
Throughout this dissertation fixed relations prescribed by modernity/coloniality—including the researcher-researched and the student-teacher—are re-imagined through the reconnection of creative practices to collective action. Through creative co-research with Ugandan youth and in one instance with fellow graduate students, I engaged with communities to unveil the mechanisms that sustain asymmetrical relations produced by modernity/coloniality in the places We/I dwell. Focusing on the structures of societal control serve to open new imaginaries for transcending power differentials by moving away from cultural mimicry toward the co-creation of new social formations not yet in existence. I hasten to add that emergent artivist epistemes and actions for such transformation require adjacent spaces to the academic project in order to support the co-creation of more adequate modes of inter-human contact premised on community self-determination. Overall, this dissertation enacts tactics for undoing disciplinary norms and other intellectually colonizing tendencies by allowing creative reflection and artistic action to flourish through an ethical commitment to making visible the invisible.
claimed to be. Graduate students’ experiences reveal ways that mentoring moments variously escape us as somehow deficient or in excess of what we expect them to be. From a vantage that attends specifically to the mentee experience, points of reflection are offered for reimagining what the mentorship experience could become.
Thesis Chapters by Leslie Obol
But what are the challenges of belonging to a community of artivists while also seeking to become part of an academic community by pursuing a doctoral degree? What does it mean to be an artivist in an academic context premised on individual achievement and dominated by textual modes of expression? And how might artivism be enhanced by the kind of deep and sustained reflection made possible by the privilege of academic study? This dissertation aims to create a conceptual inter-space for the coming together of two worlds apart, that of artivism and academia.
By bringing scholarship to artivism and artivism to scholarship I address two main questions: (1) how can artivism mobilize and legitimize under-represented youth responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape our everyday lives? And, (2) how can artivist modes of inter-action and expression offer new responses to the asymmetrical global conditions that shape University life?
When I began my doctoral degree I had recently completed co-research with youth in Uganda. Together we co-designed a series of community murals in response to youth identified concerns including HIV/AIDS and prostitution. My final master of design thesis and accompanying gallery show were well received by my examining committee and the public, yet for me, the work was unfinished. I had become part of a group of youth interested in creating a sustainable space of resistance. The community has come to be known as artivists 4 life and as it turns out, our work is never finished. Thus, I was driven to pursue a doctoral degree through a desire to continue supporting the collective’s shared efforts of “creating for a better world” (artivists 4 life motto). Yet, through my experiences as a doctoral student I began observing many barriers to engaging in artistic, youth-driven co-research situated in Africa, particularly via the existing framework of graduate study prescribed by the Western University system. Thus, through the observation that certain knowledges and ways of knowing are undermined in the academy, including the artistic, collaborative, youthful and Ugandan/African, my initial objective of doing co-research with artivits 4 life was no longer enough. I became obligated to simultaneously re-politicize creative co-research to respond more adequately to the conditions of global coloniality and the unequal power relations it manifests in the academy—across knowledge systems, race, culture, class, gender and other differences.
This co-research is guided by decolonial perspectives including the understanding that our current world order is co-constituted by a colonial logic that serves to divide human beings and societies into less-than and more-than derivatives through the subjugation of knowledges and subjectivities in relation to their proximity to the hetero-Euro-centric norm. For decolonial thinkers, hope for an egalitarian pluriversal society lies in the struggles of the marginalized, the acceptance of their agency, and the willingness to be guided by their perspectives.
All the pieces of this dissertation embody an artivist consciousness that allows for constant re-adaptation to the broader questions of decolonial struggle that shape the realities of those with whom I collaborate. Circumstances addressed include youth unemployment, sexual exploitation, epistemic racism and the increasing corporatization of academia, particularly as these precarious conditions impact upon members of artivists 4 life, myself inclusive. Artivist inter-actions engage multiple forms of enunciation in the making of murals, comics, performances, workshops, creative writing, and any other creative means necessary to break from the
pervasive wiring of global coloniality and the wounds it inflicts upon us. These interventions work to re-conceptualize aesthetics, authorship and knowledge creation/dissemination in order
to shift power.
Throughout this dissertation fixed relations prescribed by modernity/coloniality—including the researcher-researched and the student-teacher—are re-imagined through the reconnection of creative practices to collective action. Through creative co-research with Ugandan youth and in one instance with fellow graduate students, I engaged with communities to unveil the mechanisms that sustain asymmetrical relations produced by modernity/coloniality in the places We/I dwell. Focusing on the structures of societal control serve to open new imaginaries for transcending power differentials by moving away from cultural mimicry toward the co-creation of new social formations not yet in existence. I hasten to add that emergent artivist epistemes and actions for such transformation require adjacent spaces to the academic project in order to support the co-creation of more adequate modes of inter-human contact premised on community self-determination. Overall, this dissertation enacts tactics for undoing disciplinary norms and other intellectually colonizing tendencies by allowing creative reflection and artistic action to flourish through an ethical commitment to making visible the invisible.
claimed to be. Graduate students’ experiences reveal ways that mentoring moments variously escape us as somehow deficient or in excess of what we expect them to be. From a vantage that attends specifically to the mentee experience, points of reflection are offered for reimagining what the mentorship experience could become.