Blanket Stories
The stories of our lives weave a rich and unique tapestry, giving shape to who we are. When we use the common thread of the College of Forestry to weave these tapestries together, what appears is a unique creation of contrasting and parallel, experiences, perspectives and histories creating a diverse blanket of stories. That diversity is what makes us strong.
Please enjoy this recording of the presentation by David Purnell, and the submissions and stories below from College of Forestry students, faculty and staff.
David Purnell received his doctorate from the University of South Florida. His dissertation was a community based, interview project that examined how food brought together individuals of diverse backgrounds and created an environment that developed the potential for increased wellbeing of the community by building close bonds among community members. He published this research as a book, Building Community Through Food with Lexington Press. His current research interests still focuses on food as a communicative tool, but also on queering queer narratives, and shame culture effects on identity.
This is a College of Forestry Senior Leadership Diversity, Equity and Inclusion experience, presented by the CoF Communications Team.
Lecture Abstract: Sermijn, Devlieger, and Loots (2008) use the patchwork quilt as as a metaphor for a single self. However, the quilt metaphor is useful when presenting the results of a project involving multiple participants. The patchwork quilt metaphor is a means to present unique parts that make up a whole. Each blanket/quilt presented today can be appreciated on its own, but collectively they create a narrative understood by knowing the particular socio-historical conditions surrounding each submission. There is often confusion regarding the terms "narrative" and "storytelling." Narrative is the choice of which events to relate from a story, and the choice of about in what order to relate them. Narrative turns "story" into knowledge, instead of just relaying information and narrative is responsible for how the audience perceives the story. We can rearrange the display of the blankets submitted and you have a new narrative of the same storying. We are all storytellers and that the world is best understood as a series of stories that create a narrative.
