Remagination

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Ethel Tungohan: My name is Dr. Ethel Tungohan. I'm a writer, a researcher, an activist, and an associate professor of politics. This is Academic Aunties in today's episode, I talk to Dr. Robyn Rodriguez, someone who I have always admired for her scholar activism, for her public scholarship, and for the way her research and advocacy work always centers migrant communities.

Unlike many critical thinkers, whose writings on, say, decolonial theory don't align with their politics and their everyday lives, Robyn is always someone who Who not only writes about and researches migrant justice, but is someone who actually talks the top and walks the walk by organizing with migrant communities.

My admiration for Robyn only grew when I saw that she left her tenured position at uc Davis to quote, experiment with new ways of living, creating, learning and healing. End quote, by starting Reimagination Farm in 2023. Located two and a half hours north of San Francisco, taking up Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs invitation to re imagine everything, Robyn, her partner Josh, and their son Z are now land stewards of Reimagination Farm.

In our conversation, the two of us talk about how devastating loss and heartache can push us to radically change the way we live. And about what it means to take education away from the corporate university to the people. So Robyn, welcome to the podcast. And would you like to introduce yourself?

Robyn Rodiguez: Thank you so much, Ethel.

I'm so excited to be here. So yes, um, I think, how would I introduce myself? Most people refer to me as Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez. Uh, it's nice Not that I, I really am invested in the title, but I also recognize it's less, um, to signify hierarchy, but more for me to be able to acknowledge the kind of work I put in towards that degree and have that also be sort of respected and kind of recognized.

I always joke though. I only insist on the doctor when I'm with white people, but anybody else, you may call me Robyn. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so what is, so, uh, I'm a professor emeritus now of Asian American studies at UC Davis and founder, Of the school for liberating education, as well as the last steward of the reimagination farm.

So I think that I'm being referred to now as Dr. Farmer Robyn,

Ethel Tungohan: Dr. Farmer Robyn. Oh, my God,

Robyn Rodiguez: I was like, or Dr. Farmer mama Robyn. So there's that. Yeah. Oh my gosh, .

Ethel Tungohan: I love it. And for our listeners, um, Robyn's been up, Dr. Rodriguez has been up early and it's harvesting season and it's pretty cool. Kind of just, just witnessing kind of the, the, the changes that's, that's occurred in your life since.

I think 10 years ago, I was, I was talking to my partner about this. You were in Edmonton, you were pregnant and you did a keynote for Migranti Alberta. And I was a postdoc then, and I read you of course, and I've read your work before that, but that was the first time I met you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, it's Robyn.

And you were, you were, if you remember the I

Robyn Rodiguez: do remember that. I totally remember that. Yes. It was a really lovely trip.

Ethel Tungohan: Yeah, absolutely. And you've been, as I said, an inspiration for so many of us in Canada, but also in the Philippinex diaspora. Robyn, I guess my first question is, you have been someone, as I've mentioned, whose scholarship and scholar activism I've long admired.

And right now, as we're talking, you were talking about harvesting season. Um, you know, you started this amazing reimagination farm and lab with Joshua. Can you talk about that? How you pivoted, uh, from, you know, being a professor, being ensconced as a faculty member into pursuing this amazing new initiative.

Like, how did you pivot? What was that like? And what were some of the challenges and opportunities that that pivot entailed?

Robyn Rodiguez: Sure. Yeah, it's funny. I think I'm asked this question a lot, but I also feel like I tell the story differently in different ways and to different audiences because there's so many different factors, I think, that went into this decision.

But if I have to distill it down to a few things, at the end of the day, really is a story that's rooted in loss and, and a desire to heal and the commencing of a journey, a healing journey. And when I say that it's multiple kinds of losses, though, so I think. One of the major losses is simply just, I think the loss of normalcy that happened during the pandemic and global lockdown.

So I think that moment, and I feel it still in my body when I recall that moment, sometimes I feel as if it's become such a distant. Memory that many of us are just quick to try, you know, trying to forget. But I also feel as if we need to hold those feelings of worry and anxiety in our body, both for the possibilities, actually, that they open up, but also just as a reminder of the precarity of our every our lives, you know, and I think that the pandemic for our family Was symptomatic is symptomatic of some of a deep disconnection with mother nature.

I think that as an activist, as a scholar, of course, I know how to diagnose. The symptoms of our times, right? The social symptoms of our times. We know that the system of racial capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, we know and can diagnose that these structures and the institutions that uphold them, you know, are systems rooted in extraction.

Mm-Hmm. and disposability death. Mm-Hmm. . We know this to be true and so. The moment, I think the pandemic for many of us revealed the, the deep problems with our system and I think really made us all take pause. I definitely felt like it was a, it was a symptomatic of deep ecological crisis. Yeah. And. Is a personal kind of pledge, I suppose, you know, Josh and I had said we, we needed to remake that relationship in connection to the land and we needed to do it as a family.

But I think my husband doesn't necessarily identify as an activist and organize it, but he's a man who's. Moved by a deep sense of justice and what's right and good in the world. And yeah, and it just felt that we needed to, to make right our relationship to the left. So that's where the seeds, I suppose, of this.

Of this journey, like took places in that moment. And definitely it's also in the moment of the pandemic too, when we experienced many other kinds of personal losses for my husband, the very first elder, you know, so my, my husband is small and, um, you know, is, uh, second generation refugee. And the very first uncle among his father's siblings to die in America died during pandemic.

Just what days before, um, we lost the model, my oldest son, who was in the Philippines living and working amongst indigenous communities and also unable to get to medical help at the height of the pandemic. So, you know, I think all of these losses triggered for us like this pause. Which was, okay, how are we going to live in the context of the earth literally kind of being, shaking up underneath us?

And how do we move forward? And how do you move towards life in the context of all of this loss? At some point, you know, different opportunities also opened up, you know, because I think the pandemic was so many things for me. I think it was both loss and opportunity, right? On one hand, if our normalcy was lost, There was also the new possibilities for how to live and be in the world that the pandemic opened up.

People were so incredibly creative about how to connect with one another. There was a way that we had softened towards one another, were able to hold one another in our vulnerability. I think there was a way that we were showing, expressing gratitude towards one another, love towards one another. In a way that i'd never see I mean there was a clear cultural shift But it was not uncommon to be on a zoom to end the zoom with And I love you or just kind of holding people because we were in a moment when we did not know what the future could really hold, but it forced, you know, it created under ways of being and relating that were beautiful, right?

The creative ways people were still trying to feed themselves. To take care of themselves, to take care of others, mutual aid. Every, I mean, there was a proliferation of all sorts of ways of being and exchanging with one another that opened up in the pandemic that was such a source of inspiration as well.

Right. All of the healing work that started to get activated in our communities, healing our physical bodies, healing our hearts. And so all of this was, was the context too, in which I was, we both were healing from grief. Absolutely. And I think that's also what emboldened us. Um, so, you know, at some point during the pandemic, um, and as we were exiting out, it just felt like, why are we not going to?

Go, you know, do this, like fulfill a promise we've made to mother to really move towards cultivating life, which is a different thing from, I think the work I was doing as a social justice activist. I say this often that so much of my work in my life was around advancing social justice. But advancing ecological justice as part of that framework was sort of secondary the notion I think for me on some level was that you advance social justice You necessarily are advancing ecological justice and I think i've come to a realization that that's not true That we have to kind of name ecological justice as something that we're committed to We name it alongside social justice, you know, people often talk about you're living the dream And it's a funny thing and I think there's something for us to reflect on like, what is it?

That so many of us have these land dreams. What is it that so many of us actually deeply desire a connection to the land, but it's always some far off possibility that may happen in retirement. Should we live to get there or just some impossibility of a life that just can't be because We have to deal with like the the realities of the challenges of our world But I think there's something there there that I I invite us all to reflect on what?

Is it about that desire, this deep desire to connect to the land? Um, even for children, I feel like it's so natural. Like it's, there's something to be said about why all children, like, you know, toddlers are always drawn to farm animals, are drawn to the farm. They feel immediately a kind of peace and comfortability in these contexts.

I think it says something that we have to kind of interrogate. And, you know, I think for us, our losses invited that leap. It's like, you know, what, what is holding us back, um, from this land dream, apart from Things that we are constructing for ourselves about, you know, what makes that not viable or plausible.

Ethel Tungohan: That's really fascinating and also really moving to see that, um, you know, I've always known you as someone who's been active in migrant advocacy. I've used your work. I've been inspired by your example, but to hear you speak so. so meaningfully about ecological justice and saying, you know what, hold up, like, let's stop.

That's actually important. Can you speak a little bit more about this concept of ecological justice? Cause I'm also, I need to kind of fully understand like what that means to and how you live that in the everyday.

Robyn Rodiguez: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think ecological justice for me really means that we are taking seriously You know, Mother Earth and the other living things that populate this earth and make our very lives possible as human beings.

As as seriously as we take kind of justice for humanity. And, you know, because on a basic level, we it's really not possible for us to live, you know, without some kind of relationship to nature. And, you know, we. I mean, as an activist, so much of the call is land is life. That is absolutely true. Land is life, but not land necessarily only as in relation to kind of questions of sovereignty, but really land as the source of life.

It is the thing that provides for our nourishment or for our, the possibility for our reproduction, you know? And I think that There can be a way that we treat kind of land in an abstraction. It can slip into a kind of a minor role when we're advancing justice, right? It's just this backdrop against which I know we're struggling for humanity yet.

You know, it's not, we can't not contend with, um, like we know capitalism is extractive. We know that, but it's also true that we can engage in a kind of extraction as well, even under different kinds of modalities of economic exchange. And I think we have to, when you keep sort of that ecological justice frame at the center, I think it allows us to open up.

Kind of how we think about what it means to advance kind of justice, you know, just as an example, right? You know our food systems, right? We don't there's so much about what we don't understand about our food systems how it's possible to grow food What are all of the various, um, you know, things necessary toward for the growth of food.

Um, the, the various kinds of living beings that are all kind of put into play in the production of food and really fully understanding the land, the soil. As as equally a part of this system of production, distribution and consumption. I just feel like at least for me, you know, and I won't speak for others, but I think for at least for me, I think really thinking in those terms.

Was it wasn't always at the center of my thinking in a way that I think it is now are you you know Let's talk about migration so much of what fuels immigration out migration from the philippines is because Philippines is the natural disaster capital of the world. Absolutely the filipino people bear the brunt Of the entire planet, you know, kind of, um, you know, just this system and how this system and a global scale has produced all of these kinds of climate dislocations that our people have been bearing the brunt of, right?

And, um, You know, necessarily climate disasters, which have become too normalized for Filipinos in the Espera, you know, you just kind of know that typhoon season will hit, there will be category X storm. There's going to be a need to raise money to repair roads, to get clean water, but it's become far too normalized for us to just go through the rhythm.

Of the year anticipating disaster will happen preparing ourselves for that as opposed to really Asking the questions about what is driving these climate disasters? and how We can shift how we're thinking about climate disasters. And again, of course what what produces migration? It's clearly, you know, the the the um, The infrastructures that are wiped out as a consequence of climate change Disaster, you know, the, the basic resources for living that like wiped out Trump as a consequence of climate disaster, all of that, all of that produces the conditions for out migration, which again, we haven't necessarily, I think, thought through certainly scholars.

Yeah, I don't know that we're asking those kinds of questions. I think activists. Have been intuiting this for a while now, but even how that's being articulated in terms of like, um, political campaigns, you know, it's, I haven't necessarily, I think we're all struggling. How do you, how do you talk through these things?

Cause it'll invite different ways of thinking and relating, right? Because when you're talking about climate disaster, talking about accountability, you're talking about, you know, these conditions, these, They, they collapse borders, right. And require a different way of thinking in terms of belonging, accountability, responsibility, and all of that.

You know, so I think that that's kind of, uh, the challenge. And I think as scholars, we haven't fully grappled with that challenge. And I think, you know, I, This, this knowing that has been activated for me, this kind of is really, um, made possible by a new kind of relation to land. So I've been thinking a lot about land as pedagogy embodied knowledges that come in relation to the land and kind of how that has deeply shifted.

my ways of thinking in the last few years.

Ethel Tungohan: Absolutely. And it seems as though, as you were talking, I was nodding along and thinking, my goodness, it's like you had to kind of, you know, leave the academy and start working in the land to really truly understand what this means. Like it's deep in your theorization.

And I really hope you're writing this or that you're kind of, you know, sharing this as well with, with those of us who. who would like to learn more about kind of these interconnections as well. You know, just because you left your faculty position, you're now professor emeritus doesn't mean you stop teaching, right?

And in fact, you know, as I was looking at your website, I saw that you still teach, that you're actively involved in the community, that you've started the school for liberating education. Um, can you talk to me about What kind of compelled you to keep, to keep that role going in terms of teaching and making sure that it's grounded in community and untethered from the university, right?

Robyn Rodiguez: You know, I'd always believed, uh, especially when I accepted the faculty position at UC Davis, uh, was in an Asian American studies department. It was very specifically for somebody who had an expertise in kind of in the Philip, in Filipino studies. Right. So by that meaning, Right. Somebody who was doing research on and about the Filipino diaspora, as well as the relationship to, of course, U.

S. Philippine relations. Right. So, for me, it was such an honor and a responsibility to, to, to take on a position that, um, very few in North America might ever, ever be offered. Right. To actually be invited. Precisely for your expertise on the Filipino experience, but I recognize that what. To that meant that in a state like California or in the United States where we have such a long history, these kinds of knowledges are only offered at very select universities around the country where you have to have gone through so much.

Such a rigorous process to, you know, it just made no sense to me. So while I was teaching at UC Davis, I was always trying to find mechanisms to share out what I was teaching. I had started like a podcast, not really kind of sorta. So like, you know, I think my first course or. One of the first times I was teaching Filipino, the Filipino experience in the United States, I just recorded my lectures raw and put them up to what used to be iTunes University.

They're still there somewhere because I thought like, you know, there are too many people who don't get an opportunity to learn this. And I've always thought ethnic studies to be deeply transformative. It was meant to be like, as, as, as, especially, you know, for those listeners who might be in a Canadian context.

So ethnic studies. Was formed as a consequence of major student struggles in the United States in the late 1960s and 70s, right. Inspired by the black power movement and all of the liberation struggles happening at the time to really transform the university. And so I I've always felt it deeply transformative as a student and even more so maybe as, as a professor, but I also recognize that it become institutionalized.

Was unavailable to most people in our community. So, yeah, so I was already doing that already had created a website. Accompanying my course, sharing out academic articles that are usually behind a pay wall. And so. You know, when I decided to exit the university, I wanted to be able to, you know, I felt like, wow, now I can actually do this without potentially blow back from my institution for sharing out resources or whatever to students who aren't enrolled that I could really kind of, um, share curriculum I developed over, you know, a decade that really, I think, was always meant to be in the hands of people in our community and in a format that's a little bit more accessible.

It was really just that, you know, after all these years, I've been part of the movements to really try to get ethics studies in, in the K through 12 system to continue to expand investment in ethics studies at the university level. Um, so, you know, my impulse was always. I need to put this out there, but I didn't have all the capacity when I was at the university.

We have so many other responsibilities to tend to, and the expectations you're tending your own students. Right? Um, yes, you're kind of evaluated for your service beyond. The university to some extent, but even still what's considered more valuable as your service to the field, the academic discipline, or the work of the academy, as opposed to kind of how we support our communities.

Right? So, you know, for me, I just, I just felt like I wanted to be able to share out all this labor I put in. As well as access, right? Cause I, you know, it's not as if I don't value scholarly work. There is absolutely a need for scholars. There's a need for people who do the work of pondering, observing, noting, um, you know, findings from that deep observation, there's a role always for us to be, to play as scholars.

There is always a role for educators to convey and share knowledges. And so I continue to, you know, I think that again, the pandemic and all the beautiful kind of creative energy that was unleashed by people during that time gave me this, the, the, uh, tools. Uh, to low, you know, to find another way to do it.

And so literally, you know, I, during the pandemic as part of my healing journey was, was, I was taking these kinds of virtual classes and how you thought, well, you know, this is not unlike any of the course management platforms I've ever, why can't I just, you know, try to put my course content and online, but really challenged myself to think how.

Would I do that differently, considering that, you know, the audience may not necessarily be college students, you know, I'm just thankful that I discover or I was introduced to other platforms for sharing knowledge and, you know, gave me kind of the idea that, you know, I can, I could do this and, you know, it is, you know, I can't be free, you know, I mean, of course I'd always like lectured and gone around in the community bringing Asian American studies, ethnic studies, Filipino studies, studies into broader publics.

But the reality was the university was paying me, right? The tuition of students, um, who were attending Davis were paying me even if I was, you know, extending. My volunteer labor to community by conveying, you know, kind of sharing these knowledges. So somehow there was a way that resources were kind of distributed to allow me to do what I was doing, you know, um, partly as on, you know, where I was, you know, extending free, like, you know, labor as a volunteer.

In a voluntary capacity or whatever. So anyway, but the point simply being that, you know, I think that the only shift with. With this is that there's this platform, it's open to anybody. Nobody has to apply, but, you know, there is an invitation if folks have capacity to to invest in it, if there's capacity, you know, of course, I'm open also to all manner of other kinds of exchange, but, you know, it's, it's definitely been also a way, frankly, to sustain.

Ourselves, you know, as a family, one of the ways, because, you know, we live in this capitalist context, there's still a need to pay bills and retiring early meant real kind of impacts for, you know, kind of me for us as a family materially, because I don't get a paycheck in the same way anymore. And, you know, I retired too young for my pension to be a whole lot, but I do hope that people, you know, see.

It as a resource, and, you know, the, the, the creation of the platform was not, you know, because, you know, solely to generate, you know, you know, financial resources, it was, and still is very much about sharing knowledges that are otherwise unavailable to our community. And yet I feel like. absolutely, you know, should be in their hands.

Ethel Tungohan: One question I had, and this is, you know, perhaps something that has been percolating at the back of a lot of people's heads, especially as, you know, academia is becoming harder and harder to live with it, right? Like there's so much, there's so much hypocrisy, there's so much silencing in terms of kind of the selective use of concepts like academic freedom, protests, or being.

Like, you know, are being demonized in larger university contexts, programs are being cut, but also like administrative creep is something that I've had to deal with a lot. Like, in order to do my job, I've had to leave the university and I've had to kind of go on sabbatical, right? Like, which is ironic, like, in order to research and teach, I have to, like, be off technically from work.

What were some of the things that you had to do practically to leave the institution to pursue this dream? And here I'm thinking you became full and then you left, right? Like, was that a deliberate decision on your part?

Robyn Rodiguez: Yeah. Yeah. No, it definitely wasn't. I mean, I think that when I became full, A professor, uh, and also, you know, became chair of our department.

I saw that as this, this, you know, that as possibility opening up, right. Those of us in academia, we recognize what it means to achieve full. It's not something that everybody can achieve, you know, and the conditions under which we work, make it difficult. Nearly impossible to achieve that and that was a major accomplishment.

I mean, you know, in the context of a major research university at that, and I used that I leveraged my positionality as full to then, you know, do the work of this grassroots campaign that became the Bulletin Center for studies. So there was, I felt as if, you know, I was finally empowered. With the kind of the, you know, social capital that comes with being a full professor.

And I mean, in many ways I was able to, uh, successfully leverage it. We were able to secure quite a bit of support from the community to establish a center, to, to also to mobilize and advocate from the state of California to get. Some further investment. So all of that to some extent worked, you know, I don't know if I didn't have that stature, whether the community would trust enough, you know, but it's also true that I'm an organizer.

I think that regardless of my. My stature in academia, my relationships with community is probably what was more meaningful, although it didn't, you know, wasn't a disadvantage either to have the pedigree along with those relationships. But no, it wasn't, it wasn't planned at all. I really, it was kind of my world falling apart, our world falling apart that made me take pause.

Now, I do have to say that the pandemic to reveal to me, you know, even for, I mean, if I didn't already know, you know, as if we don't already know, right. We already know about kind of that we inhabit an institution, a very neoliberal racist space. We all know that we already know this. And I think at least for me during the pandemic.

And also kind of in our second or third year of the below Sun Center, I think the ugly face of the university really revealed itself. And, you know, you're right. Partly what happens is you get, you know, you, you climb up the ladder, the ranks of the professoriate. You're now serving in these administrative capacities.

It's like seeing, you know, the Curtain is pulled. Yeah, right. You are you see the machinations of this institution and Already that, you know during the pandemic. I was feeling a lot of bitterness and anger towards the university Anger towards the way, you know, the administration for, you know, and just, you know, my, my colleagues who really were pushing towards normalcy when clearly our students were struggling and suffering, you know, there are massive protests.

Right? Uh, in response to the murder of George Floyd in the U. S. context and here I am in this ethnic studies unit, along with all of these other colleagues. Investment isn't coming from the university into our unit, right. But into other kind of like really sterile, you know, kind of like watered down D E I initiative, right?

Yes. Like you're putting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah. And when we were here, we've been here for 50 years with an analysis of white supremacy with all of this scholarship, and you're going to put it elsewhere. Right. So. All of that was, was happening and I'm observing this and you know, and I'm also observing again, a proliferation of all of these other ways.

People in our community were sharing knowledges. It was amazing. And I'm thinking, you know, so, so that was already. And frankly, you know, just, you know, I think the big thing that, that, that also happened is, you know, I, um, life insurance. I mean, I mean, that is truly also what opened up sufficient, um, financial resources for us to be able to, to be bold about, um, you know, taking this lead.

I mean, I had happened to have policies on all of my family members because, you know, which. Filipino family doesn't have an uncle or auntie selling life insurance. I mean, it's a joke, but it's, you know, it's also the reality of what happened because I don't know. I honestly do not know what would have happened if we didn't have the life insurance.

Whether I'd still be at the university, probably, you know, would this land dream still be at a distance probably or not? I don't know. I think maybe I might've still left and started, you know, a nonprofit, you know, which I did anyway, and continued to do the work that I started in Belo Sun Center in a nonprofit, I think that.

Inevitably, I would have moved in some direction because I would have wanted to a model, which I wanted to do is up to honor a model, my son, a model for his work and ensure that somehow he lives on through this entity. So I think that still would have happened. The question is, would I have. You know, completely less.

I don't, I don't fully know, but I do know that the, so many things became revealed to me during the pandemic. And I felt like there was no other way, but to move in this direction. You know, the opportunity was there. The possibilities were there. And I just had to take the leap and it's not been easy. So I can't pretend either that it's been an easy journey, but I definitely feel a level of, you know, kind of autonomy and liberation to do the work that is meaningful to me that I don't think I felt for a very long time.

Ethel Tungohan: That's so beautiful. And I think. One thing I'm kind of learning from you as you speak is that all of these different moments kind of led ultimately to this epiphany that ultimately became a gift for you to kind of pursue this dream, right? And I suppose my final question to you is what advice will you give our listeners who have been kind of socialized into thinking that their dreams are silly, that they really should prioritize being part of capitalist institutions in order to provide like, you know, cause that's also part of maybe it's not even just a university mentality.

Maybe it's an immigrant mentality, right? Um, what advice would you give to our listeners who are feeling kind of these glimmer stuff? Of of longing, uh, to pursue something else to pivot to do. Otherwise,

Robyn Rodiguez: right? I mean, my advice would be, um, I think it's it is important to kind of, um, ensure that we're sort of checking in with our bodies.

You know, I think there is a knowledge there about where and how we should be moving in our lives that we often deny. And I think that's an important first step, I think to, and you know, maybe this is kind of a land knowledge when you kind of see how life can proliferate in any number of kind of context.

You know, if, if anybody's ever gone to the desert, you'll see how much life actually can still proliferate in the desert. I don't know if that offers people hope, but I do hope that it does. There can be other ways of living. We've already witnessed it. We've all borne witness to other possibilities of living during the pandemic.

Every day there is evidence of what is that there is other form, you know, other forms of living are possible. So I think that that's another thing that I would advise people is to just see what is already there. I think it's sometimes we're just not allowing ourselves to see the possibility. for having me.

I mean, the third is to continue to be as you move forward. You know, I don't think that moving forward in the ways that we have is, is possible either without connections to movements for social and ecological change, right? A lot of what makes our farm possible, for instance, is because we're connected to a whole sets different networks of social justice and ecological justice organizations are people who feel aligned with this kind of vision.

You know, so without that either, you know, um, we, we, we, I don't think we'd be able to kind of move forward in this way. But again, I think that's just the hopeful possibility of what can be meaning. We are creating. We've already created. Other modalities of exchange, right? Again, the pandemic showed us from mutual aid, kind of like, you know, relationships that were kind of created or just different structures.

There are ways to attend to our needs that can operate both in and outside of the system and at least for me. I think these experiments with living are, are important because, you know, and, and I've said this over and over again, but I don't know how best to describe the shift for me, which is that I've been in a space of, you know, trying to dismantle to resist all, you know, that that's kind of what organizing and kind of social justice work looks like, right?

It's even, you know, critical academics work is we're deconstructing. We are trying to for the purpose of dismantling these systems of oppression. And I think I really want to be in a space where I'm also lifting up and trying to manifest on some scale, however small the possibilities for liberation. And so, you know, it's kind of the space where I want to be now is how can we tinker and play with what, you know, using kind of the frameworks that come out of movement.

For what other possibilities can look like, and you know, my role as a scholar, I think comes in again to take the pause to reflect on what those insights are and to share them out.

Ethel Tungohan: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Those are such beautiful words and kind of hearing you. articulate so, so poignantly kind of your journey and how imagining possibilities and trying to live through these possibilities that's really and truly, that really and truly has inspired me.

Thanks so much Robyn.

Robyn Rodiguez: Thank you so much.

Ethel Tungohan: Robyn's words of wisdom compel me to dream about ways we can transform how we live, about the values we hold, about our relationship to the land. It also made me dream of ways we can liberate education away. from the neoliberal university. I know that many of us probably can't imagine transforming our lives as drastically as Robyn did.

And Robyn herself admits that her ability to do so was a result of very specific circumstances. But perhaps, after listening to Robyn, we can think of small ways we can pivot towards achieving our dreams. towards building a better, more sustainable, and a more ecologically just and caring future. And that's Academic Aunties

get in touch with us on Instagram or on Twitter and listen to past episodes at academicaunties.com. And if you go to acacademicaunties.com/support,you can find out all the ways to support the pod, including becoming a Patreon supporter and purchasing awesome academic auntie swag. Today's episode was produced by me, Wayne Chu, and Dr. Nisha Nath. Tune in next time when we talk to more academic aunties. Until then, take care, be kind to yourself, and don't be an asshole.