Does this look like your typical Monday night? I’m a music lover and am at shows quite often, but it was a welcome surprise to jam out the way I did last night. Especially because I was helping facilitate a conference on deforestation in Madagascar co-hosted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Duke Lemur Center. A quick look at the conference schedule shows that we had a full day of engagement. But throw in some creative planning and Malagasy musician Razia Said, and you get the perfect way to conclude a conference and liven up a Monday night.

The symposium was organized by the Duke Human Rights Center at KIE, and the Duke Lemur Center, and was one of the first major events with funding from the Duke Africa Initiative. Lou Brown’s FOCUS class used Madagascar as a case study for examining globalization and corporate social responsibility from an anthropological perspective, and contributed extensively to the planning for the event. Researchers and practitioners in fields from conservation ecology to economics to law were brought together as speakers for the panels. Because of these various angles by which the issue of deforestation was approached, the experts that were involved as well as conference attendees such as graduate students in related fields could gain from the synthesis of ideas that took place. For some, that meant grappling with challenges to their beliefs. The importance of lemurs and biodiversity was explicitly juxtaposed with the importance of maintaining livelihood and dignity for the human inhabitants of Madagascar, which made for a more complicated, richer discussion. It was a truly multilateral approach to education and research sharing.

I think one of the things Kenan does best is act as a moderator and synthesizer for engagement in diverse fields. We try to take an idea, involve multiple partners with multiple viewpoints, and broaden the perspectives of all involved.

And if your inclination is that an academic conference at Duke must be a stiff crowd, then we can broaden your perspective on that as well! The spirit of camaraderie from the day followed the crowd into Duke Coffeehouse, where Razia and her band gave us inspiration and a call to action. In another iteration of our “think and do” model, Monday’s Madagascar conference illustrated that sometimes a healthy process may be to think and dance!

I’ve been struck recently by the realization that Kenan has organically integrated more and more of the arts into its programming, which has had me thinking more deeply about the windows that can be opened through creative representation.  I’m reminded in a particularly vivid way each day as I walk down the halls of West Duke.  It has become a standard practice to display artwork along our hallway that relates to one of our programs.  Poignant thoughts hit me on my way to my office, and different images strike me in different ways with each trip down the hall.  When I see others stop, on the way to class or a meeting, I have this great sense of fulfillment that the walls are actually speaking to the issues we are exploring.

Exploration in the arts has been particularly useful for our focus on global citizenship.  A collection of photographs entitled One Summer in Damak, from a joint undergraduate and graduate research trip to refugee camps in Nepal, was a huge success last year.  Many people in the Duke community learned about the refugee experience through this photo essay, and local resettled refugees were able to gather and talk about their past lives through a reception held for the exhibit opening.  Most recently, the Duke Human Rights Center at KIE has sponsored a photography exhibit called Nowhere People, which documents stateless populations around the world.  It opened last week with a panel discussion about the ethics of photography for social change, which included the Nowhere People photographer Greg Constantine, UNHCR Communications Officer Charity Tooze, Duke Pediatrician John Moses, and Center for Documentary Studies Director Tom Rankin.

One of Constantine’s descriptions of his work, which is very much tied to the medium by which he works, is that he is providing visual evidence, he is making an invisible condition visible.  Throughout the evening, he was not simply talking about photography; explanations about the causes and condition of statelessness continually arose.  His body of work is clearly meant to be an educational tool.  Of course, how best to use such a powerful tool is critical.  He went on to say that roughly 25% of his time is spent taking the photographs, and the other 75% is spent strategically controlling how they are used.  Many ethical issues were raised.  Is it appropriate to use an individual’s story or image to take a stance on a broader issue?  What counts as full disclosure of how the work will be used?  How do you reconcile not being able to do something, in a concrete sense, for the people right in front of you who you are representing?  How can you best control the democratization of your work once it enters the public sphere?

These are tough questions for documentary photography and film, photojournalism, and other forms of creative expression.  They are also things we are thinking hard about, since by displaying and sharing creative work we are a part of that process of representation, both its value and its risk.  Students in our Ethics Certificate Program discussion section have heard from playwright Mike Wiley and Documentarian John Biewen about how they address ethical issues in their work, and have grappled with their strategies as well as what they heard from the Nowhere People panel.  If I were to summarize two key themes that have emerged, I would say they are: the importance of research, and the importance of framing.  The more research you do, the more confident you can be that you are giving an appropriate representation.  And by being thoughtful and deliberate with the way you frame a story—hopefully with the input of those whom you are documenting—you show it greater respect.

Some other Kenan students have been deeply involved in this process of research and framing in order to illuminate an issue creatively and educationally.  Through our DukeImmerse program last spring, 12 students collected the stories of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and Iraqi refugees in Cairo through life story interviews, while also intensively studying refugee issues through a semester’s course load.  They were then equipped to create a magazine, as well as a set of monologues to be performed dramatically. In the latest extension of this project, our Ethics, Leadership, and Global Citizenship FOCUS students are currently performing the monologues at Durham high schools.  After a strenuous process of research and crafting, we are now confident in using them as an educational tool.

Artistic representation must be undertaken carefully, but it can be such a powerful conduit into an issue.  Art, film, drama, music… these things strike emotional chords in us that are invigorating.  If we use these mediums to make certain conditions visible, the table is then open for deeper discussion and learning.

We will be using a different form of art as part of a symposium on rights and resources in Madagascar on December 3—look out for a concert at Duke Coffeehouse by Malagasy musician and activist Razia Said.  It should be a fun night of creative representation!

Can you decipher what is going on in this picture? When I just glance at the photo in hindsight, it seems to suggest a giant party, with larger than life streamers, confetti, and one of those long-armed men that blow in the wind. While I like the festive connotations, they’re not quite accurate. This is a shot I took in Page Auditorium this weekend while viewing–or experiencing–the How to Build a Forest art installation.  I happened to read about it in last week’s Recess and decided to check it out.  I say festive is not the proper description because while it was beautiful, my mood was overall quiet and contemplative, and I honestly left somewhat disheartened.  The artists spent eight hours building this “forest” out of materials such as fabrics, wire, plastics, and other nonsensical items that reminded me fondly of The Scrap Exchange.  The care that was taken to collect and assemble these items was incredible, and the environment they created really did usher you in to explore its diversity. My mind felt sharper by engaging so deliberately with my surroundings.

The major idea being that the forest was an ecosystem in process, the exhibit was meant to be a [meditation] on creation, destruction, biodiversity and ecological sustainability. It made me think about how we care for the natural world, and also how we produce and track materials that in their multiple iterations become less and less natural. The field guide to the forest charted the raw materials utilized for the products that built the forest and where those products came from, both geographically and by type of store or other procurement source. They even asked to see the tag of my shirt when I entered the forest to add its country of origin (Haiti) to their expansive list.  And of course it was impossible to know everything’s source. Some of us may take pride in shopping at the local boutique, making a concerted effort to recycle, and maybe even hosting an arts and crafts party at the Scrap Exchange, but to really think through where our materials come from and where they are going is daunting.  It feels so good to clean out a closet, dorm room, or basement, but where will our unwanted items go next? The lines of the chart cannot be reversed so that materials are disassembled into their natural states.

Are you a risk taker? Do you perceive the risks around you on a day to day basis?  Are you compliant when told to take precautions because of certain risks?  My mother was recently relating the story that when she told my brother as a pre-teen that he had to wear a helmet or he could not ride his bicycle, he chose to stop riding his bicycle! The perceived risk for most of the neighborhood kids was the embarrassment of wearing a helmet, rather than the danger of a bike accident, and we responded accordingly.  Now, in a different set of circumstances, my brother is an avid cyclist living in Carrboro, and never goes without a helmet.  There is both the greater risk involved—heavier traffic combined with higher speeds—as well as reinforcing social pressure that now makes the helmet an easy choice.

People respond in funny ways to risks, and while it may not always be rational, it’s certainly something to pay attention to.  One interesting phenomenon is that people’s perception of risk changes dramatically once an event has occurred to actualize the risk.  We already have a bad sense of probability, and we are easily influenced by experience and emotion. When the actualized risk is a large public phenomenon, suddenly there is much more talk of “best practices,” and our experience and emotion can play into that. How much does regulatory governance respond to this public reaction? Do we sometimes overreact in ways that can negatively affect the economy and society? At other times do we underreact?

On a broad scale, this is the phenomenon being explored in a new book project by the Rethinking Regulation program at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.  Recalibrating Risk (the working title of the book) will look at three sets of disasters—oil spills, nuclear explosions, and financial crises—and examine how regulation in these areas is affected by perceptions of risk over time and in different places.  A set of international authors from different fields (Political Science, Sociology, Environmental Science, Psychology) will ask and answer questions about how reactions to events affect policy.

The Recalibrating Risk book project is an example of how the Rethinking Regulation group brings together different conceptual frameworks for regulatory practices. The core of the Rethinking Regulation project is a group of faculty and graduate students from Duke, UNC, and NCSU who meet monthly to share their work, discuss papers, and brainstorm ideas.  The ideas generated are strengthened by the perspectives of faculty who come from multiple disciplines.    They also hold occasional public events, offer grants for graduate research related to the analysis of regulatory governance, and are developing more course opportunities related to regulation.

This research area touches on so many practical issues in our society.  I am very excited to see what this group of experts will have to say about topics on the American consciousness like the 2008 financial crisis and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, how they will draw in the lessons of both history and other geographic areas, and what ideas they might have for future risk events.

In other news: I’m also looking forward to an upcoming public event hosted by the Rethinking Regulation program, a talk on October 24 entitled “Regulating the Regulators: A Conversation with Former OIRA Administrators.” Sally Katzen and John Graham were both administrators of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, but from the Clinton and Bush administrations, respectively.  What do you think?  Will they discuss drastically different notions of regulatory policy making based on their relative administrations?  I’m guessing their overarching goals were more similar than political rhetoric would make it seem.

I wrote part of this post on a legal pad. Does that sound completely foreign? What would cause me to write things out in pen and ink, when typing in a Word document is basically ubiquitous and so much faster? Well for one, I still hold out for cursive writing, and will defend its increased speed and easier flow compared to print. But regardless, the process is certainly more measured and deliberate, and I think that’s just what I needed.

I was thinking a lot about the process of writing this weekend. I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, after watching the video of Ann Patchett’s talk to the Duke Class of 2016, and reading about Maya Angelou’s speech to the same group.

Maya Angelou gave her annual address to my class in 2007, and I was awed. She is a master of words, stringing them together with the rhythms of jazz and with the weight of history. Her language consumes. I’m not sure what Angelou’s writing process is, whether she sits down with a legal pad or a notebook or a laptop, but she clearly focuses on expression in a very deliberate way. She also pays attention to her influences—both literary and familial—and urges others to do so.

When I pay attention to Angelou as an influence on me, I find myself focusing my speech, phrasing in a way that will make the most impact, and delighting in an expression that truly does justice to my thoughts. I write and speak with greater intentionality when I have a clear and non-distracted focus on something that inspires me.

I do know a little more about Ann Patchett’s writing process. She shared that when she starts to formulate a storyline, she builds it up in her mind, it becomes absolutely the most inspired storyline anyone has ever conceived, and then… “everything that is glittery and gorgeous and full of life” comes out on paper and is dead. Anyone who has tried to produce anything—not just writing—has most likely experienced this block. Even in these short blog posts, I feel the agony and disappointment of translating my mind’s work into a reality. As Patchett says, going from “head to hand is the death of dreams!”

The solution is simple, yet tremendous: focused and devoted practice, until you make “a clear passageway from head to hand.” She attributes her success as a writer to the fact that she can sit for eight hours a day and simply practice the art of writing. Neither Patchett nor Angelou woke up one day as Great Writers, and they only qualify as such because they work at it. Every day. All the time. Malcolm Gladwell made popular in his book Outliers the theory that the most successful in any field—from Bill Gates to the Beatles—have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice at their craft. Mastery isn’t something one simply acquires; it’s something one earns, little by little.

This is probably not a message we want to hear. But hopefully the craft we are practicing is something that we love. Investing time and energy includes us in a community of that craft, at whatever level we may be. I found it a little bit easier to put pen to paper when I was immersed in the language of Angelou as a literary influence, and in the frame of mind of a writer. So focus on the things that give you inspiration, enjoy being in the community of your craft, and then practice producing your own work. In an incremental, disciplined process, you will start to make your own contributions.