The group action project this quarter is perhaps one of the most salient learning experiences I’ve had at UW.  And this is most likely because, by most standards of effective collection action, we failed.  The movie I found, “We Feed the World,” is a film that so effectively summed up many of the topics we discussed in class that many of us in our group thought we had the potential for an educational and rewarding experience for all that attended.  But, we approached the project with a certain sense of naivety that comes with no experience of organizing collective action.  As I sat tabling in front of the HUB, armed with what I believed to be information on a topic that everyone should hear about, it was slightly disheartening to see person after person walk by without even giving me a second glance.  No one wanted to hear about the global food trade, or about starvation around the globe, or about massive food surpluses.  In order to get people to even turn towards me my pitch was reduced to “free food, free movie.”

I quickly realized that despite the global food trade being amongst the consequential aspects of the world economic system, that very few people in this area can bring themselves to care about it because it so rarely affects them.  This “failure” on the part of our group to pique the interest of people outside the class was extremely educational.  As someone who wants to pursue a career that ensures justice for others, the reality of just how difficult it is to mobilize people became real.  I also realized that despite how much I knew about the topic, it doesn’t really matter unless you also truly care about it.  Of course this isn’t to say that I didn’t care, but just like the people that walked by without a second glance, the effects of the global food trade aren’t very impactful in my life either.  That to be an effective organizer for collective action in the pursuit of just causes takes, above all else, empathy.  I need to value the lives and well-being not just of people I know or see around me, but of all humanity.  An abstract idea, to be sure, but one that I think will apply not just to collective action or environmental causes, but to everything I’ve learned in my time in the political science major.