Category Archives: Contemplative Practices

Contemplating Chocolate

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Throughout our time in class, we have participated in numerous contemplative practices, enveloping the themes of industrialized food, living systems and interdependence, hunger, and more. However, the one that stood out to me the most was the practice involving the chocolate, and the lesson surrounding international trade and global inequities. What intrigued me the most about this contemplative practice was… Read more »

From Personal Realization Comes Personal Expression

The practice of cultivating self-awareness is a challenge that exists in all facets of life. In the study of world food politics, it is a practice which is vital to understanding various problems which plague our world. In our class, we have focused on a range of contemplative practices. These specific reflections have created a space which has allowed for… Read more »

The Hoodia Rap Song

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***Click HERE to take a listen — Hoodia Rap*** Here is a rap song I wrote from the contemplative practice about industrialized food process, hunger, and its aftermath. The Hoodia plant grows naturally in the southern region of Africa. The San people traditionally consume the bitter plant as an appetite suppressant, to help survive in desert conditions where food resources… Read more »

Contemplative Practices Save Lives

In my opinion, contemplative practices should be necessary in today’s academia, especially in political science classes. With this being my first political science class taken, these practices help me to digest the material by being present and feeling “in the moment”, for example, with the raisin. With the raisin sitting in my mouth while Professor Litfin read “A Raisin In… Read more »

An Academic Contemplative Practice Convert

I came into the class about hunger, having followed Professor Litfin’s suggestion of not eating breakfast, absolutely starving – or what I qualify starving to be. I’m a person who eats four small meals a day, perfectly spaced out as to never feel hungry, to avoid what people privileged as me refer to as “hanger”. Before this contemplative practice, I… Read more »

Where Contemplation Meets Hunger

The contemplative practice that we did regarding hunger was especially resonant for me because it allowed me to more closely consider what it meant for me to be hungry and juxtapose that with what hunger meant for others worldwide. I didn’t know what to expect from Silent Killer; I did, however, hope it wouldn’t too closely resemble a UNICEF commercial,… Read more »

The Necessity of Contemplative Moments in Academia

I think that the concept of contemplative practices are really helpful, for allowing space to digest complicated emotions that arise when discussing the vast issues within the world food system. In conversations that center around inequality, injustice, gender, violence, poverty and capitalism; I find it a necessity to have space for each person to digest the material in their own… Read more »

Reflections leading to better choices

I must admit; my first impression of contemplative practices was not the best. Possibly because I had never done anything like it during my time at the UW, but also because I had no idea what to expect. Yet after participating in a couple of them throughout the quarter, I began to realize the value behind them. Here in America,… Read more »

The “Bitterness” behind chocolate

I am a chocolate lover and I like to collect diverse brands of chocolate from different countries. I can get gratification and relaxation by just tasting the sweetness and bitterness from it. However, before this class, I have neither thought of the creation of the chocolate nor any economy and political systems that would relate to the chocolate production. One… Read more »