ABSTRACT

Drawing on qualitative research conducted in the summer of 2018, we explore the role of camp programming and staff discourse in the (re)production of white ignorance at Camp Sitka, a wilderness Boy Scouts of America camp. Using epistemologies of ignorance, we examine two important pieces of nostalgic camp programming and the justifications and surprise to them among two seemingly antithetical groups of camp staff members, traditional ‘old Sitka’ conservatives and progressive ‘new Sitka’ staff. We argue that both pieces of camp programming mobilised nostalgic longing for an imagined version of the American past, made possible through the active forgetting of histories of white violence. Both nostalgia and surprise arose from and reproduced white ignorance. More specifically, both ‘nostalgia’ and ‘surprise’ were narrative distancing moves that obscured racist realities, which fuelled a cycle of ignorance that ultimately helped insulate systems of racial inequity from meaningful critique.

摘要

利用 2018 年夏天进行的定性研究，我们探讨了营地规划和员工话语在美国童子军营地 Sitka 营地（重新）生产白人无知中的作用。使用无知的认识论，我们研究了两个重要的怀旧营地节目，以及两个看似对立的营地工作人员群体，传统的“旧锡特卡”保守派和进步的“新锡特卡”员工的理由和惊喜。我们认为，这两个营地节目都激发了人们对想象中的美国过去的怀旧渴望，这是通过积极忘记白人暴力历史而成为可能的。怀旧和惊奇都源于并再现了白人的无知。进一步来说，