“…we forget to look sideways…”

The Concept:

Minor Transnationalism, an anthology edited by Françoise Lionnette and Shu-mei Shih, both initiates and advocates the concept its title names—“minor transnationalism.” In the introduction, Lionnette and Shih observe a common fixity among approaches to the transnational, that being, to operate within a minor/major vertical, binary system.  They address four limitations of the minor/major dynamic: It neglects potential lateral connections; It reinforces oppositional identity politics; It denies the complexity and multiplicity of minorities; It obscures what has always been hybrid and relational.

I get the sense, however, that rather than spend too much time identifying limitations, Lionnette and Shih want to see the product of opening the dynamic to new, generative possibilities.  They have started a conversation about an alternative vision, wherein “subjects act and interact in fruitful, lateral ways” (2). In this vision, “the transnational…can be conceived as a space of exchange and participation wherever processes of hybridization occur and where it is still possible for cultures to be produced and performed without necessary mediation by the center” (5). What this project achieved is, to me, exciting; it serves as an example of the lateral hybridity it promotes.

My Encounter:

I’ll admit, I’ve had moments—yes, especially while writing this post—wherein “minor transnationalism” seems, though well-intentioned and motivational, chimerical.  Then I think, so what if it is? Does not a major gesture, sometimes, in causing the slightest shift, propel something or someone in a new direction, however slight?  And regardless of what quantifies a valid “change,” a shift has occurred.  My particular shift experience was brought on by a very a simple, casual statement on the opening page: “…our battles are always framed vertically, and we forget to look sideways to lateral networks that are not readily apparent” (1 emphasis added).  It is a simple reflection, perhaps, but it carries immense implications. Once we start looking sideways, who will be there? Who won’t be there that we were expecting? Who will there that we weren’t expecting?  Who will start showing up? Who will disappear?

Beyond my agreement that shifting from minor/major to minor–minor would open up connections in active and productive ways–that work against the homogenization of globalization–I wonder how this shift might accelerate the erosion of long-standing structures. If the minor becomes more full, does the major become more empty?  Who comprises the dominant group? If closely inspected, does it become an amalgamate in itself?  If the more minor categories open up, connect, form new bodies and amalgamates of bodies, will more bodies flood out of the major to populate those?  Will more bodies flood into the major?  Will both the major and the minor change? Could the minor networks spread not only around or between dominant vertical structures, but also may make room for the vertical to flatten and spread as well?  History says they have every reason not to, but what if they did?

As you can see, the idea of “looking sideways” has me asking a lot of questions; I’m not sure how they will manifest in my future work.  So far, they’ve only made me into a nuisance in my English Literature class by starting every comment with, “well, in the Transnational Theory course I’m taking….” But, I can see how the concept (among many others addressed in this course) has begun to seep into my approach, informing the way that I read.  What is more, it has altered my sense of from where I am reading.  I have been forced to face my own position in the world, which I have long ignored.  And I’m beginning to realize that the discomfort of its complexity and instability may be used in productive ways. At least I sincerely hope so.

In his novel, Open City, Teju Cole conveys temporality–through both its form and its content–as an impersonal, indifferent, multi-directional, volatile force against which people struggle to maintain themselves.  Time is reflected as a dynamic expanse, comprised of material and reflected layers—the earth and it’s weather patterns, man-made structures, sound, memory, text, stories, and so on. These layers and reflections are constantly shifting; at any moment, in any space, or mind, a sudden fissure may break open, allowing the earth below to surge upward and overtake the surface. Although the newly emerging matter has always been there, supporting the surface, its new position alters the entire landscape. People have to navigate this unstable expanse. Some times, some people can sense a fissure—a blatant presentation of simultaneity.  They take note of shifts.  Other people, at other times, misinterpret them, or fail to notice them at all.  Apart from brief moments, or at least perceived experiences of a ‘bird’s eye view’ of this expanse, people are deeply and irretractably immersed in the landscape. Above, around, and within this expanse, with its moving people, is the inhuman, the elements—the sky, the cosmos, water, and life force.  It continues on, indifferent, yet directly impacting the traversal of people over the expanse.

Here, I will articulate four layers of the novel upon which the reader might ‘stand.’ Hopefully, in doing so, I will reflect how Cole’s volatile, simultaneous, histories cause the reader to lose her footing almost as soon as it is assumed to be gained.

1. Un-human Temporality

Throughout the novel, the narrator, Julius, directs the reader’s attention to un-human forces. These forces not only impact people, but influence their motions, shape what is perceive and how it is perceived. What is more, this un-human influence run so deeply that the motions of humanity itself, are reflected as an other-than-human mechanism.  In reference to cosmic and natural elements, such as the time of day, the season or the weather, Julius uses descriptions such as “unresponsive night” (54) and the “indifferent winter” (183).  In contrast to the impervious elements, the decisions and actions of Julius and his general trajectory, are highly responsive to those elements, in return.  Just as much, if not more,than his own mood or preference, the rain, wind, light and dark drive him from one street or interior to the next.  He takes note of these influences often.  In the Spring he writes, “I have noticed how much the light affects my ability to socialize” (193).  Recounting his father’s funeral, he remembers the impact of the stifling hot weather (224).  Julius is also influenced by people. He is repelled away by the gallery security guard and compelled toward others, such as the Czech woman in Brussels. Julius seems at times, to mindlessly float along these capricious paths motivated by external influences.  At others, he seems to do so with an accute awareness: “how petty seemed to me the human condition…this endless being tossed about like a cloud” (146). In one moment, as he lay in an ally, having been brutally beaten and mugged, the materiality of temporality, became viciously clear: “As I lay there, time became material in a strange new way: fragmented, torn into incoherent tufts, and at the same time spreading, like something spilled, like a stain” (212). As the reader follows this narrator, who merges, sometimes seamlessly, sometimes jarringly, through others voices and other times, the novel begins “spreading…like a stain.” This spreading, upward and across, creates the sense for the reader, that she trapped in the limited perspective of a person deeply immersed.

2. Led by the Senses: Layers of Sound

Woven throughout Open City, the perceptions and actions of weather-affected human-machines are also described as being dependent on the senses. One of the senses of focus is the auditory. The novel is brimming with competing noise—the radio, the clatter of a briefcase, the symphony, and the rain on the roof.  These noises, like the temporal landscape, approach and recede, combine and separate or repulse or attract.  Even the absence of noise, seems at one moment, to be crippling, and at another, suggestive of some sort of posthuman connection.  Depending on a person’s situation, predisposition, preference, and the circumstance of that very minute, he/she will tune in or tune out, respond or not respond, to sound.  Competing noises in this “open city” sound uncertain, ethereal conflicts.

When Julius hears the chant of protestors, speaking out against violence against women, he closes the window (24).  But, as if their cries had drawn him into his past, beckoning his reach, he calls his ex-girlfriend. Her voice, in contrast with the self-assertion of the protesters, is “strained,” singular and distant. At moments like these Julius seems to be feeling something, but it is not clearly articulated to the reader, or perhaps, to himself.  At other moments, most specifically in relation to music, sound both constructs his mood in one sense, and shelters him from embedded emotion, in another.  Toward the beginning of the novel, Julius’ reaction to music playing overhead at a record store, further immerses him into his perceived present, fostering connections and pathways: “…every detail had somehow become significant…somehow seemed a part that intricate musical world” (18).  Yet toward the novel’s end, in the present tense, he has an emotional response to a symphony that seems to draw him out and up.  Over the world.  Both of these responses, nevertheless, inspire a response.  Yet when faced with words of conflict, such as Moji’s rape accusation, he responds not only with external silence, but with internal silence as well. He says and writes nothing.  Not to her.  Not to the reader.  Instead he leads into chatter about Camus (246), to fill the silence.

3. Perceived Volition of Humans across Layers

Within the novel, we are alerted to how people select–sometimes with intention, but most other times via causes outside of their control–how they will negotiate time.  People write papers, books, tell stories, post words, and name word. Julius tells his reader, “Names matter.  Everything has a name” (233).  It is difficult to know if Julius is critical of this “matter,” or is indifferently naming it as a reality. There is a moment wherein he thinks that the human forced resolve to self-knowledge, or to put it in his words, to “articulate ourselves to ourselves,” is “perhaps…what we mean by sanity” (243).  And in the same way that donors donate to put their names on buildings, to be not only named, but named as heroic, Julius suggests that sane, articulate, people must make themselves the heroic protagonist of their own story, not only for themselves, but for others. To earn their own trust and the trust of others, or, the “sympathy of an audience” who is “ready to believe the best about us” (243).  Julius successfully earns his own trust; he assesses himself as “hewed close to the good.”  And he may have successfully earned the trust of his reader. He narrates this concept of sanity and self-heroism right before (potentially) violating the reader’s trust by recounting Moji’s rape story.

The reader cannot know if her story is true. We know nothing, but that Julius has nothing to say. That being said, suddenly moments in previous chapters emerge in our memory, reshaping how we interpret the present.  The reader is becoming one of the people being tossed around through the pages. As the humans being depicted lose their place as the master of the universe, the reader finds it difficult to project blame. Because, In which direction would it be launched? Julius, and the “open city” are always on the move.  And each place and moment alters perspective.  Julius goes from the 3^rd floor of the professor, to the subway below ground to M’s apartment on the 29^th floor.  But even within one level, the experience changes, from on train to another, from one day to the next.  The heterogeneity not only spreads, but also collapses. The narrator describes the layers of the city.  He uncovers time past, that is still in the present, only lying, unacknowledged, below.  Time passed also rises above, layers of history piled high, in the midst of swarming people too caught up in their perceived present to notice: “the grand columns and arches irrelevant to the fatigued immigrants who rarely raised their heads to look above street level” (235).

The human memory is also presented as unreliable and unpredictable–unplaceable. In almost the same manner that one cannot predict how the weather will change history, the human cannot know within which time he/she is functioning.  In a memory, a launch into a past that is thrust upon the narrator, and his reader, we are brought to his mother’s response to her husband’s funeral.  Within that memory the reader is launched into her memory, which recedes further and further.  She speaks in “a faraway voice, because it could not talk about the death that had just shattered us, had begun to describe long-ago things” (79).  Although circumstances can uncover hidden pasts, like an ATM number, it can also veil them, like the rape of a friend’s young sister (167).  Temporality becomes dependent on what humans can access, what they are willing to access. Yet, how can one access a moment in time, when time is in constant simultaneous motion?  Different pasts suddenly collide, like the “echo” of Moji and Nadège: “two individuals separated in time and vibrating on a singular frequency” (61). Julius critiques the view that time is a continuum, saying that “The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float” (155).  And suddenly all of these reflections and assertions of the past that creates the present, are mere reflections of nothingness: “the world doubled in on itself.  I could no longer tell where the tangible universe ended and the reflected one began” (192).

The author simulates this folding over in time, its confusion, by using dialogue without quotations, that merge into the dialogue of others as well as non-spoken thought.  How could these voices be clearly distinguished? They are layers of reflection, with an absent author, putting the words of fictional characters into the mouth of another fictional narrator, who dictates to an unknown reader.  How is the reader to designate one, true voice or story?  Perhaps she shouldn’t.

4. The Ephemerality and/or Fiction of Seeing from the Outside

There are brief glimpse in the novel of an outside, an apartness from the volatile landscape.  If not homogenous, or overarching, it is a frictionless calm and is something that Julius seems to privilege. Throughout the narrative, Julius expressed enjoyment in high vantage points, where he can “take in, in a single glance, the dwellings of millions” (240).  Toward the end of the novel, after Julius begins speaking in his present, he describes a brief moment of wherein he experiences a sense of the vastness and depths of history.  This experience–created by a combination of the emotional high from hearing a symphony, the bodily rush of being high up on a fire escape and having an uncommonly clear view of a starry sky– lead Julius to understand that, despite his inability to perceive them all, there was a vast expanse simultaneously existing stars: “But in the dark spaces between the dead, shining stars were stars I could not see, stars that still existed, and were giving out light that hadn’t reached me yet, stars now living and giving out light but present to me only as blank interstices” (256). Cosmic matter and human history merge together, and the reader is ready for the novel to articulate connection, finality.  But, the moment is quickly lost: “I had come so close to something that it had fallen out of focus, or fallen so far away from it that it had faded away” (257). Julius looses, once again, his sense of proximity. And the reader is bellied a fastened, stabilizing summation of the story.  Because it simply cannot be.

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Disclaimer: Blog prompt #2 led me down a path that I’ve never attempted going down before.  I realized, early in, that I would fail to present a condensed and cohesive blog post within the constraints of time/space/assignment, but I couldn’t resist the attempt.  What I am posting here is a ROUGH beginning of a longer draft outline (I’m frantically trying to log-in and edit it every chance I get).  It represents one of several bodies of memories I have as a foreigner considered to be in a ‘dominant’ or ‘privileged’ position.  It is one that this course, the last two weeks of reading in particular, have caused to re-emerge.  The larger draft is outlined to reflect three different micro-locations at three different times, and although they are all within the same general region of Western Indonesia and in response to the same natural disaster, to me, they differ significantly. 

Here I have included only a shortened version (believe it or not) of location #1. MY APOLOGIES FOR HOW LONG IT IS.  FEEL FREE TO SKIM!!! 

A Problematic (IN)Dominant Categorization of a Borderland. 

Or, The “Shallow Pond” of Stagnant Tsunami Water

“Perhaps if their situation becomes completely intolerable and we can do something about it at reasonable cost, we may even have a duty to intervene” (Appiah, 153). 

“Charitable giving in the wake of the tsunami of Christmas 2004 was remarkable and heartening; but…” (170). 

A Summary from (a)location:

A. September 28, 2014 Wikipedia search:  “2004 Tsunami”

“The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia…The earthquake…triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people in fourteen countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 ft high). It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. Indonesia was the hardest-hit country, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.”

B. Out of the estimated death toll of 230,000 people and 1.5 million people displaced, over 165,000 of those deaths and one third of those displaced people were in Indonesia.  Regardless, the majority of the media coverage in the United States was on Thailand.  One can’t be too annoyed.  Many U.S. citizens were taking vacations there at the time. As a result, there were terrifying and heartwarming stories to be told accompanied by actual footage.  The focus on Thailand drove up the ratings.  It also drove up the charitable contributions.  I wonder what coverage was more effective elsewhere. Phuket is a pretty big tourist location. As they say in Indonesia: “Ada gula ada semut.” Where there’s sugar there’s ants, meaning, common people are attracted to interesting events.  


It is equally unsurprising that Sumatra Indonesia did not make for good coverage.   Indonesia is made up of over 13,000 Islands, only three of which are of particular interest to Western foreigners. There is a large missionary tradition in Papua.  Java holds the capital, Jakarta, which is considered to be very cosmopolitan.  And then there’s Bali, well, apart from being a gorgeous and close-range vacation spot for Australians, it is a well prepared paradise for expatriates who like to surf, write books and paint pictures.  That’s why it got bombed in 2005.  

Sumatra, on the other hand, especially the North West–“Aceh Jaya”–prior to the Tsunami, was without tourism or a “Western presence” since roughly 1976.  ‘Officially,’ the primary reason for this inaccessibility was political instability caused by “The Free Ache Movement,” a group of separatists who are referred to, by the Acehnese, as “GAM” (Geraken Aceh Merdeka) and to the Indonesian government, as the “Aceh Security Disturbance Movement.” Un-‘officially,’ Aceh is considered to be–by those from without and from within–a religiously conservative Islamic society.  The GAM, some say, were fighting for the maintenance and preservation of their values.  How many Acehnese were on/off-board with GAM is ‘unknown.’  People, of different religious faiths and ethnic backgrounds, including predominant public Islamists figures, believed, for a variety of reasons, that the tsunami was divine punishment.  I, for one, do not believe in such things. But, whatever the cause, I think everyone could agree that the wave brought with it a surge of the foreign. GAM reluctantly reached peace agreements approximately one year after the disaster.

C. After the wave(s), that witnesses described as a “dark 30-meter cobra rearing its head,” it took three days for help to come. “The Australians” say they were there first.  But so do “The Americans.”  In either case, to hear the story from a local official who was near the water searching for the bodies of family and neighbors, whoever it was, they looked like aliens invading.  It was the great apocalypse. What he was actually seeing was a military hovercraft, launched from a U.S. aircraft carrier.  But to the people standing amongst the rubble, having been shut off from the outside world and being in an early stage of a kind trauma few can relate to, aliens were invading.  The Indonesian government took longer to arrive, though it is difficult to get an official confirmation.  People with whom I was acquainted said it took 10 days. There are many reasons why.  And they do not all point to Western superiority.  

D. I arrived in Aceh 6 months after the disaster—as part of the “3^rd wave” relief effort.  I had recently defended a thesis for an MA in Gender Studies, when I was offered a job coordinating the opening of a “women’s vocational training center,” for widows of the tsunami.  I was the “perfect fit.” Single.  Young.  Western.  I was “well-educated,” had an MA in “women’s issues” (a rare commodity).  I had “international and crisis work experience.”  And most of all, I had a “big heart.”  Really, I was a Canadian atheist woman, who had just written a thesis called “(Re)conceptualizing Utopian Movement”—completely built on abstractions—and was going to work for an overtly Christian organization, predominantly comprised of Americans to address the needs of women in a country she knew nothing about.  I couldn’t imagine what I could possibly have to offer, but I felt compelled to do what I could and was excited by the interesting opportunity.  For a “white trash” Canadian, first of her family line to get a college degree and one of very few to leave the country, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. 

Location #1: Meulaboh, June 2005

Description: By the standards of foreign aid workers, Meulaboh was a little bit on the “hardcore” side, but “not quite hardcore,” especially that long after The Tsunami.  A foreign aid worker could only access the town via a 4-6 seater aircraft that took high-standing to arrange.  When a foreigner fell ill, he/she had to be evacuated out.  But, there was clean water, plenty of delicious food stalls and, if you wanted to, you could avoid ever seeing an IDP camp (internally displaced people).  Plenty of structures remained further inland, so there were places for NGO (non-government organizations) to set up shop, and they did.  Local property owners moved in with extended family and charged exorbitant rent.  The NGOs paid.  In fact, the NGOs would fight to outbid each other, to get the best ones, which drove the prices up further.  Locals could no longer afford rent.  Small organizations couldn’t either.  Overhead costs for relief projects were increased.

People groupings :

(Organized not in order of my perception of rank, but rather by my degree of confidence in categorization. All too telling.)

1. ‘My’ NGO (which we will call XX)

a. The Foreigners: All Christian.  Well, except for me. But note, despite being faith-based, their work was entirely relief and development based in nature, as opposed to evangelical.  All were well-educated, and most had relevant work and educational experience.  No one was making much money, by their standards, but they weren’t spending money either.  Back home, their jobs were considered to be nobel, courageous, and exciting. Unlike non faith-based NGOs, what these XXers were doing “overseas” was referred to as a “missions trip.” The group was predominantly American—including a Korean-American, Chinese-American, there were a few Canadians, a German, and an expatriated Brazilian.  The majority had little to no interest in learning the language. There were translators for that. They would only be there temporarily so it was a bad use of energy. A minority learned as much as they possibly could, if not to ease the tasks of their day, to show respect for the culture and (although no one admitted it) to feel really cool in front of other Foreigners.  

Me vs a.  This is the to category to which I ‘belonged.’  Though I wasn’t a Christian, which was perceived to make me weak.  For reasons I still don’t understand, I failed to bond with other people in this category. There was a comeraderi laced with an unspoken competitiveness.  You won if you were “on the ground” sooner, had been there longer, had more previous experience in similar situations. I had trouble engaging in these types of conversations.  

b. The Missionaries: There were the missionaries that had invested their lives in Aceh long before the disaster.  They spoke fluently, they knew people, they ‘understood’ the culture.  XX used them. 

• The Hardcore Assimilators: These people weren’t at all what I had expected.  They completely defied my assumptions about “missionaries.” They were the very rare foreigners who had somehow assimilated themselves into Aceh.  They were well respected and integral parts of the community. After the Tsunami, the Hardcores were not only forced into association with the “Western invaders,” but were guilted into “partnering” with Christian NGOs.  Many of them tapped out and tried to keep their distance.  Some of them, after the fact, suffered assault from their Acehnese community due to their affiliation with the infiltration. There life’s work was destroyed. 
• The Expats with a Mission:  I’ll admit, I only knew one by this time (I have since met others), but she deserves an entire subcategory—“Catherine.” She was the wife of a wealthy British venture capitalist who lived in an enormous house in South Eastern city of Medan.  She held a bible study for well-educated Christian, mainly Chinese-Indonesian women whom she affectionately called “her girls.”  She agreed to partner with our NGO, because her affluence and residency gained XX easier access through a myriad of bureaucratic channels.  She was highly suspicious of the influx of aid, thought our team, in particular, was a disaster of its own and fought for control.  She fought.  And she left a trail of foreign product managers behind her.  Including me. 

Me vs b: I nicknamed one of the Hardcore Assimilators, “my guardian angel.”  He was from my home town, he helped me in indescribable ways, he was my father figure.  In contrast, “the Expat with a Mission,” among other things, thought I was a dumb punk and devised a coup against me at the vocational training center.  The last time I saw her she was laughing at how horrible I looked while being transported due to a mysterious illness. 

c. The Nationals: Appriah’s “collective obligation” (164).   All Christian.  XX would only hire them if they were.  They were the “well-educated,” somewhat “westernized,” who had been hired by XX from other parts of Indonesia to come and help. They lived and worked, side-by-side with the Foreigners.  Their salaries were generously based on the income standards of their local economy, skills, training and experience.  It was less than the Foreignors.  But, like the foreignors, their jobs were considered as noble “mission” work, were considered to be well-paid, and, in addition, working for a foreign aid org was considered very prestigious and paved their way for future travel and residency in the West. 

Me vs c. This requires a gender distinction:

• Males: My relationship with the guys was jovial.  We didn’t mix on any close basis. I knew girls from other NGOs that had intimate relationships with them (one recently married).
• Females: My category as a female foreigner, generally speaking, had an amiable, simple, and unequal relationsip with the female Nationals.  It was friendly.  They kept to themselves, for the most part, and the Foreigners did too. The Foreign women practiced their authority with confidence, without a thought, it seemed.  And it also seemed to work very well for them. The female Nationals appeared to adore the Foreign men, in particular.  They were overtly polite, flirtatious, laughed at every joke, went above and beyond their job descriptions to be helpful.  For me, it was hit or MISS.  I shared a small room and every minute of my day with a National for three months in location #3.  Just the two of us and the local men that we managed.  She was my stronghold.  We made it. But that was very rare. There in Meulaboh, my authority was questioned, my intelligence mocked. I had to stumble my way through tasks that weren’t part of my job description.  They stopped talking when I entered a room.  They stole my clothes, wore them openly and denied that they were mine.  I asked the laundry ladies, with awkward gestures (I did not yet know much of the language, and my household translators were my thieves) to place my clean clothing in a separate, hidden place. I suspected the Acehnese ladies wouldn’t tell the Nationals about it.  I sensed that they didn’t like them very much because they spoke with an air of superiority.  I also surmised, though it troubled me, that this is why, unlike me, the Nationals and other Foreign women were so much more successful in maintaining their authority.  The laundry ladies and I, nevertheless, enjoyed our little secret.  We were in cahoots. 

“They will come to see that they are not helping us but following our lead” (107).  Was I the “they”?  Had I come to “see”?  At least a little?  And was my lead the Nationals or the Acehnese?  Could the Nationals only seeing me as a threat? They saw me getting paid more, stealing the attention of the foreign men, doing a job that they could not only do, but probably do better?  Was our unity too difficult to forge because we had too much in common.  It only accentuated our differences? 

d. The Acehnese Locals: These were the people that lived in the community, but were employed by XX.  They were our security guards, our drivers, our cooks, our cleaners, our electricians and sometimes even our buffer.  They were all muslim.  We respected their religious practices and they respected, if not protected, ‘ours.’

Me vs d.   

• The men: I was what I always thought of as a “third sex.” Meaning, within reason, they did not expect the things from me that they did from Acehnese women.  They gave me special allowances.  Example: my big white calve exposed to all the security guards as I clumsily get off the back of the truck.  If I showed that I was trying, if I shot them a horrified, apologetic glance when I messed up, they were gracious. Amused even.  After all, they weren’t worried about my negative influence on them.  But I had to remember that they were quick to disapprove.  Especially when it came to my interaction with Aceh women.  I was not to be an example. 
• The women: There were far fewer local females employed by us.  In this location I had minimal interaction with them.  I had entered a home/office situation where the domestic machinery was already in motion.  Since training and instructing them wasn’t part of my job at this point, I interacted with them outside of work (without a translator) and so we were reduced to smiles.  I would say my few terms of polite exchange. They were always friendly. They seemed undisturbed by my presence in a room. They were silently accepting if I sat on the floor with them and peeled shrimp in silence while they told stories in the local dialect.  They taught me how to wear a hijab.  They liked giving my outfits a nod of approval or a shake of the head.  They cleaned my room even when I told them they didn’t need to and saved me plates of my favorite dishes when I was late to dine.  They didn’t expect anything from me, it seemed.  They seemed grateful that I acknowledged their existence.  Sometimes it made me feel like an asshole, sometimes it made me feel grateful in return. 

e. The Beneficiaries, or, The People: They were the reason we were there.  The remembrance of them was what kept us motivated. Tough day?  Remember the people. The Bupati (local official) won’t allow you X, Y or Z?  Remember the people.  Always an effort to remember the people.  They were everywhere.  They worked for us.  They sold us our food, our gasoline.  We were inhabiting their space to help them.  Why were they so hard to see?  Who were ‘they’?  What did that ‘they’ really want? 

Me vs. e: These were the people I saw the least, and I was with them far more than many of my coworkers ever were.  Perhaps due the nature of my position?  Or because I insisted on it?  I don’t know.  ‘My’ beneficiaries were, very often, the only people that I liked spending time with.  I guess you could say it was because they made me feel good about myself?  Because I had a savior complex?  If that’s the case, it sure didn’t feel that way. Was I romanticizing them?  Objectifying them for the pleasure of my own spectatorship?  Maybe they were only kind to me because they appreciated my efforts? Because they thought they had to? I don’t know.  I do know that, at least in location #1, this would be my most positive exchange with the “people.”  Later, in the GAM region, there would be strikes.  Angry mobs of armed men would hold ‘us’—foreigners, nationals, local employees alike—hostage in our makeshift home because, in our effort to help them experience the pride in ownership, were making them work too hard to build their homes.  The tools we were providing them with to do so were not good enough.  They were angry that we fired men that were cutting corners making brick and pocketing the money.  The money that was going toward their homes.

2. All the Others:

i.  

• For group a, the Other includes a little bit of c through e, sometimes b, and occasionally a.
• For group b, the Other was a, c, d, and, by default, e. But just because they were “missionaries.”
• For group c the Other was a, b, d and e.
• For group d the Other was obviously a-c, but sometimes not as much c.
• For group e the Other was everyone except themselves, and a tiny bit of d was growing.

“…we are coming closer to identifying the fluidity and complexity of our transnational moment, where migration, travel, and diaspora can no longer be clearly distinguished by intention and duration, or by national citizenship and belonging” – Shu-mei Shih.  Were we? 

 ii. The non-Christian NGOs: There were other nations presented in Meulaboh: Germany, France, England, Indonesia.  But if they had no “faith-affiliations” it seemed ‘we’ did not interact with them.  Unless it was at a UN OCHA meeting.  I couldn’t blame my coworkers. This work was hard.  You were catching a country at its lowest moment.  A time of pure turmoil.  People’s lives and livelihood were literally depending on your work performance.  There was no beginning or end to the work day.  While you ‘rested,’ you worried about whether the batu (brick) you’d been overseeing the construction of is of good quality.  Or if it will crumble like sand in the next earthquake.  You worried you were housing people in a death trap.  And then there is the cultural hurtle.  You struggle to speak and understand, you rely on the translations of a practical strangers.  There is no time to process.  But you push on because you know, unlike the people of this country, there is an end to this for you.  You will leave the rubble behind (though I later learned this is not the case for all foreign aid workers.) My coworkers had little time to socialize, and when they did, they wanted comfort, familiarity, connection, community.  Even if it was feigned.  They filled the gaps between each other easily.  Hungrily.  They stuck to their own.  

Me vs ii.  I didn’t have access to non-Christian NGOs until my third relocation, during which ‘they’ became ‘my’ community.  But ‘my’ current NGO people seemed resentful, weary of secular NGO power—they had more money, more experience, more government involvement, more resources.  But they also had less respect for the local culture.  Apparently.  They had liquor shipped in, which was forbidden in Aceh.  And they consumed it openly, had parties, let off steam, Western style.  There were stories about foreign women wearing bikinis on the beach.  Bikinis.  In a place where women were covered head to toe and wearing hijabs.  Bellies, thighs out in the sun, trampsing about in the local community’s site of trauma, in a way that violated their beliefs. 

iii.  The Acehnese people we didn’t know – conflated with me vs iii.  They may have been employed by an NGO, or may have been benefiting from a program, who knows.  But these were the people, we, I, did not know.  They were the families piled on motorcycles, the shop owner smoking on their front steps, the women padding her faces with bright-white powder, the young boys walking to the mosque.  Like other countries I have been, I was looked at.  Very freely looked at.  I was the subject of obvious and open conversations that I did not understand.  Unlike other countries, however, there was no curiosity or entertainment behind these looks and conversations.  And there was certainly no reverence.  If there was an assumption that ‘we’ were more educated, a people of higher standards of living, unlike other countries, this did not mean admittance into the ‘very important guest’ category.  This made sense to me, I was undeserving of the celebrity treatment solely based of my country of origin.  But beyond this, far beyond, there was resentment, disgust, distrust.  A tangible tension. I was an invader.  An unwelcomed guest. 

Sometimes I wanted to beg for forgiveness.  Other times I wanted to scream in their faces.  Always, I wanted to become invisible. 

Post-Category Complications:

One night, an Australian coworker who was rarely in Meulaboh (she worked mainly in the “much more hardcore” location #2) was there.  We disliked each other very much.  I couldn’t stand her stereotypical ‘Aussie’ style.  She had a nickname for everything, ‘mozzie,’ ‘ciggie’…everything.  She had been in country for 6 months and only knew how to say ‘thank you’ in the local language. And she said it very poorly.  And I, well, the American boss that she liked, like me instead (we’re married now). But we had recently been deprived of Foreign female bonding and had to make due. 

Although our NGO outlawed partaking in the vices (even when not in Muslim territory), the two of us would sneak around to relish in the occasional cigarette.  This particular night, we snuck a company truck out and drove to the nearby beach.  There wasn’t a building around.  Complete darkness.  Silence. Privacy.  We had barely had a third drag, when we heard to swarm of motorcycles and saw the rapid approach of their headlights across the land where the tsunami ruble had been cleared away.   I don’t know what we said to each other, or how long it took us to realize we needed to get the hell out of there, but on their feet around the truck with bats and sticks before Leslie had closed the passenger side door.  When she saw the bats, now that a few men were visible in the head lights and from the interior light spilling out the door, Leslie froze up. And when they saw us, they froze too.  Until I reached over Leslie, slammed the door closed and put the truck in motion.  The began yelling and chasing.  But were soon left behind.  We drove straight back to our living quarters.  Shaking.  And we told no one.  We should have known better.  But we were unspeakably surprised nevertheless. 

About two days later, we overheard a conversation among foreigners in our office.  It was about a series of attacks on people by a group of men taking Sharee’ah law into their own hands.  Local Emums had been teaching that infidels were trying to destroy their values, women were starting to walk about freely without their hijabs, men and women were sneaking off into the darkness together.  It couldn’t be tolerated.  A national couple had been beaten nearly to death just last night.  Leslie and I looked at each other.  They must have been surprised to see two girls. 

This was their country. But who was that? GAM? The young Indonesians Christians from Java?  The imum who shouted ragefully about ‘us’ from the loudspeakers of the Mosque? The woman who lost her husband and children and is trying to use this time of turmoil to gain the right to own her own shop? And what are we really doing here?  Does it matter what our motivation is?  What if we hadn’t come?  Have we done more harm than good?  How can we know?  They didn’t ask us to come here, the Tsunami did. 

I read Gloria Anzaldua words over and over: “we are the people who leap in the dark, we are the people on the knees of the gods.  In our flesh, (r)evolution works out the clash of cultures.  It makes us crazy constantly, but if the center holds, we’ve made some kind of evolutionary step forward” (103).  I wonder: Who can this ‘we’ include? And how can I find my way there?  Despite my place of dominance and privilege?  Or am I simply guilty of what Shu-Mei Shih describes as “…this logic of narcissism and dismissal of the other, all marked by supposedly well-intentioned liberal soul-searching and guilt-induced critical self-reflection”? (79).