Transcript 

Obuchi: You’re listening to episode one of On Foot.

Naomi: This podcast is produced by Obuchi Adikema and Naomi Worob. It follows our research at Grinnell College entitled Embodied Experiences in the Environment.

Naomi: My name is Naomi Worob and I am a fourth year student at Grinnell College studying anthropology and theatre and dance.

Obuchi: My name is Obuchi Adikema and I am a second year student at Grinnell College intending on studying computer science and possibly theatre and dance.

Naomi: Obuchi and I are doing research this summer focused on embodied experiences in the environment. We share a belief that experiences that allow space for us to be present with ourselves, each other, and our place are vital to our personal health and the health of the environment. So together, we are researching how dance-based movement practices can be used to connect people to their place. We won’t go into all of the details of our research here. This podcast is about a specific experience Obuchi and I have had doing our research in public space, but if you would like to learn more about our work, you can read and follow our blog at summer2018.digitalbridgestodance.sites.grinnell.edu.

Obuchi: A few weeks ago Naomi suggested that we start taking walking field trips on Monday mornings.

Naomi: This was inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s writing in Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Solnit describes walking “as the experience by which we understand our body in relation to the world” (27).

Obuchi: The idea is that each week we venture out in different directions, walking as far as we want or see fit until we reach a place where we can do our dancing research. It gets us out of the studio; it also teaches us more about the place where we live. This is a story about the walk we took together last week and where that lead us. Starting off heading south of town, we walked until we reached the place that every street where the sidewalk ends, and the pavement broke off into a field of private looking land. I was very hesitant to enter the land, but Naomi was adamant that we dance and work there. I had not seen a sign or that said “Private Property, KEEP OFF”, but I would never in a million years have gone into that field by myself or lead any of my friends there. I was outdoors in broad daylight, but felt as unsafe as I would if I was walking around an empty parking lot at night. The field looked like the place the serial killer goes to dump the body in every horror movie ever.

Naomi: I chose this piece of land with something else in mind. For me, despite not knowing if the land was public or private, the space looked inviting. I saw a wide open field with grasses, trees, plants, bugs and birds—basically, a place ideal for our dancing research. It wasn’t until our walk back, when we began unpacking what happened that we realized how different our experiences had been.

Obuchi: I live by a set of typically unspoken rules, that were passed down to me from my parents. They leave me pretty cautious. One of these rules is to give other people’s property a wide berth at all cost. Before entering almost any situation, I perform a bit of cost-benefit analysis. In this particular situation, I asked myself, “What is the cost of possibly trespassing on the murder movie field? I could get murdered. What’s the benefit? I could enjoy a field.” The joy of sitting in a quiet field was not worth the price of possibly being axed murdered. I tried to explain this to Naomi, but she saw things differently.

Naomi: I have always spent a lot of time outdoors. Particularly as I have gotten older, I have wanted to spend more time outside walking, hiking, running and exploring. And despite some telling me to be careful—it is not safe for a girl to be alone in the wilderness—spending time alone in nature has continued to be something I enjoy and seek out.

Obuchi: We started to talk about why we had different experiences. One possible explanation that we came up with is where we grew up.

Where I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there was not a large amount of public open spaces. Sure, there were government owned parks for kids to play and people to have picnics, but it seemed every open field or empty lot belonged to somebody, no matter what was the state of the upkeep. “Private Property” and “Beware of Dog” signs were common, like street signs. Trespassing on someone else’s land was a very good way to get yelled at by a property owner or confronted by the police, or worse. There was always that unspoken, “or worse” that kept me firmly on the sidewalk and off anybody’s grass. In general, if land was not explicitly public, than most people assumed that it was privately owned.

Naomi:  I am from Prescott, Arizona. Growing up, I lived a mile away from a network of trails that went far into the wilderness. There was a fair bit of private property, and while I wouldn’t have wanted to have been caught trespassing on those lands, it didn’t make  much of a difference to me because there were so many others lands available to me. Another possible explanation that came up was cultural differences.

Obuchi: Or racial differences. As an black woman living in the very white town of Grinnell, Iowa, I stick out when I am seen in places that people in town don’t expect to see me. Whenever I meet someone new in town, they almost always say, “Oh, your from the college, aren’t you” and act surprised to see me in a space that is not the Grinnell College campus. Frankly, I don’t look like I grew up here and I could never pass for someone who belongs on private non-college owned land. Naomi can though, because she’s white.  

Naomi: My whiteness allows me to blend in here. It’s true that people may associate me with the college because of my age, or perhaps the way I look, dress or speak, but often I fit into local spaces. Reflecting on what Obuchi said, I think one reason I feel comfortable walking around town is because of the color of my skin.

Obuchi: It is interesting how seeking out a new embodied experience widened our conversation to not only include race, but also public and private space, to whom belongs, to whom it doesn’t belong, and why. There is so much more to say about this topic, and we are just brushing the surface of what other folks have done and learned. Bringing this all back to our research, there’s this quote from David Barnhill in his book At Home on The Earth, Becoming Native to this Place. He writes, “if we are to create a culture that lives in harmony with the earth, if we are to overcome our alienation from nature, we all need to find our path toward becoming true inhabitants of place” (1999, xiii).

Naomi: Walking together and sharing our experiences has been a way for us to begin that reversal of alienation, but in some respects our conversation has only highlighted larger structures—namely, urban planning and racism—that prevent folks from overcoming this alienation from nature all together.

Obuchi: I’m curious to see what other conversations and exchanges of ideas will come up as we continue to explore these embodied experiences in our shared environment of Grinnell.

Works Referenced: 

Barnhill, David L, ed. At Home on The Earth, Becoming Native to This Place: A Multicultural Anthology. University of California Press, 1999.

Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Penguin Random House, 2001.

Chick Corea. “Children’s Songs”. Chick Corea: Children’s Songs, 1983.