in the process of writing and performing a play called The Ford Foundation Los Illegals. program officer Roberta Uno herself spoke of the need for patronizing art for arts sake a – subversive idea in the current can be unnerving for grantmakers to experiment with climate: “It funding socially engaged art, especially if they have specific impact measures. But we don’t should also be investing in these artists for what they do and that is the The play – experiment.” was not intended to influence lawmakers, or build the capacity of immigrant workers, or any other outcome that could be showcased in a foundation report. Rather, its end goal was creating art, while providing a forum for day laborers to share their stories. It is the tension between the guided processes of storytelling and the stories themselves, between a global phenomenon and its local iterations, that lies at the heart of this book. On this point I diverge from theory of culture-as-a-resource, in that it ends up being too Yúdice’s reductive for understanding stories. For Yúdice, achieving some degree of agency within culture must be done from within the confines of state and market that seek to control it. But I think that this formulation gives short shrift to storytellers, who sometimes, even if briefly, manage to break out of the utilitarian binds of state and market to create alternative spaces of collective imagining that offer a path toward transformative futures. This book raise crucial questions for those interested in social justice movements today. Does the problem lie with the way that storytelling strategies are being applied or rather with the movements themselves, in their exchange of confrontation on the streets for a more transactional and foundation-driven politics of consensus in the courtrooms and legislatures? Could more radical contemporary movements like Occupy Wall Street and the strikes Oaxaca teachers’ (Stephen 2013) provide models for a different kind of storytelling, ones that may even go beyond the dependency on intermediaries or charismatic leaders as in earlier movements? Do individual
in the process of writing and performing a play called Los Illegals. The Ford Foundation program officer Roberta Uno herself spoke of the need for patronizing art for arts sake – a subversive idea in the current climate: “It can be unnerving for grantmakers to experiment with funding socially engaged art, especially if they don’t have specific impact measures. But we should also be investing in these artists for what they do – and that is the experiment.” The play was not intended to influence lawmakers, or build the capacity of immigrant workers, or any other outcome that could be showcased in a foundation report. Rather, its end goal was creating art, while providing a forum for day laborers to share their stories. It is the tension between the guided processes of storytelling and the stories themselves, between a global phenomenon and its local iterations, that lies at the heart of this book. On this point I diverge from Yúdice’s theory of culture-as-a-resource, in that it ends up being too reductive for understanding stories. For Yúdice, achieving some degree of agency within culture must be done from within the confines of state and market that seek to control it. But I think that this formulation gives short shrift to storytellers, who sometimes, even if briefly, manage to break out of the utilitarian binds of state and market to create alternative spaces of collective imagining that offer a path toward transformative futures. This book raise crucial questions for those interested in social justice movements today. Does the problem lie with the way that storytelling strategies are being applied or rather with the movements themselves, in their exchange of confrontation on the streets for a more transactional and foundation-driven politics of consensus in the courtrooms and legislatures? Could more radical contemporary movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Oaxaca teachers’ strikes (Stephen 2013) provide models for a different kind of storytelling, ones that may even go beyond the dependency on intermediaries or charismatic leaders as in earlier movements? Do individual
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