The Babel Gift: Cross-Cultural Dynamics and The Gifts Model

Background Context

The sudden, complete and unexplained shut-down of the White Bear Media Project in the middle of the field tests of the rule-set which had been teased out, resulted in a further research project on my part (primarily) and at my own expense. I needed to find out if the reason for its demise was inherent in the process we had developed for the support of First Nations Post Secondary students, or somehow external to our activities. The answer was critical to the issue of future transfer of our results to other contexts.

I managed to get them to pay of he equipment I had obtained on their behalf, which brought me to the point of break-even as I had calculated two years before...no gain no loss. The next phase was to result in my moving into a heavy debt position, mitigated a bit by some further money from the band.

Approach Used

All the approaches we used were blocked in the end, and by Christmas it was clear that whoever was blocking our continuation was determined to be successful no matter what we did.

• I carefully documented everything that happened incase some pattern emerged in the documentation which might shed light on the situation.
• I maintained constant contact with the people I and worked with throughout the project (which became increasingly difficult over time)
• I tried to encourage the students who had done summer projects to carry on
• We sought outside funding (unsuccessfully)
• I purchased a camera to make a documentary with Bruce on the project and the need for it to continue (it became clear that this would not be appropriate)
• I visited a series of people I knew elsewhere to see if they could see where it might have gone off the rails (to no avail)
• Finally, having exhausted my resources, and facing perhaps one last trip with the now very creaky truck, I visited the woman who had been instrumental in initiating the project to explain that, in keeping with a commitment I had made to her at the first, I was not going to be here because I had found something better, but rather because I literally had no further resources.
• A comment in that conversation served to break open the issue, resolving the question as to whether the shutdown was intrinsic or extrinsic to the findings themselves.
• following a further five-month period of processing the implications of the woman's comment, I wrote up a summary of the situation and delivered it to her with tobacco and thanks.
• I backed off the situation as I realized that it was internal to their reserve and was inappropriate for me to meddle in.
• Midway through that processing period, I seriously considered doing photography out of the "Field Unit" on the resort which was located within the Reserve bounds as a free-standing entity, but by that time I did not feel I was able to do that.
• Redvers Church location, taken up later that summer, allowed me to monitor developments at White Bear from the sidelines to some extent, but things became so busy there it left little time for contact with the band.

Current Status

I have backed off the project as such apart from personal contact with some of the participants. The project is are from finished in my mind, though its local expression is of course likely finished so far as I am concerned.

Findings To Date

• Book: The Babel Gift cross-cultural dynamics and the gifts model (roughed out now)addressing the implications of the findings of this period for our own culture, and cross-cultural relations.
• funding sequence insights, and insights pertaining to the nature of the two economies operating on the reserve.
• White Bear Inter-tribal "gridlock" phenomena (town decoding)insights, (1994-95). These were built upon in the next assignment at The Redvers-Manor Pastoral Charge.

Lateral Connections

Required for Completion

I'm not sure. Some sort of dissemination of the results. Some sort of closure to the larger project and this ancillary one. These insights, like the ones from the larger project, lie like beached whales unable to get back into the water and move forward in relevant discourses.