Applications for the 2021 Visions After Violence Fellowship are now closed.
The deadline to apply for the Visions After Violence Fellowship is next Friday, Oct. 29th. To help potential applicants, we’ve collected frequently asked questions about the fellowship and TAVP here.
You will work with TAVP staff to develop an oral history project that will consist of 5-10 interviews. After the interviews are completed, you will work with TAVP to share them with a broader audience. Examples of how you might choose to share your project include a public event, a zine, or an exhibit. In the past, TAVP’s interviews have been conducted in English, but this is not a requirement. If you speak another language and want to interview people who are more comfortable speaking in that language as well, please let us know in your application.
While it’s up to you to create the project, you do not need to have a fully formed plan of what the project will look like to apply. Instead, tell us about what topics interest you that relate to Texas and state violence, if there are specific people or groups you envision interviewing, and any ideas you have about how you would want to share these interviews. For example, our Sheltering Justice Project has focused on interviewing people who have been affected by both incarceration and the COVID pandemic, and involves interviewing people who have experienced incarceration and their loved ones.
In general, TAVP’s oral history interviews are filmed. When interviews take place in person, we use a video camera and a backup audio recorder. If they take place over Zoom, we simply use Zoom to make the recording. Recording materials and/or funds to purchase materials will be provided if needed. Having your own materials is not a requirement to apply.
No. You will be expected to devote 5-10 hours per week to this project from December 2021-September 2022, and to attend meetings with TAVP staff twice a month. However, we recognize that fellows will have other commitments, such as work, school, and caregiving, and we will be flexible in scheduling meeting times. It will be up to you to decide when to schedule time to develop the project, conduct the interviews, and to work on sharing them with a broader audience.
Applications Open: September 22, 2021
Applications Due: October 29, 2021
Applicant Notifications: November 19, 2021
The fellowship starts December 1, 2021, and ends September 30, 2022.
Applicants must be based in Texas, although the position is remote and does not require you to meet in person with TAVP staff. Applicants must have lived experience with state violence. There are no minimum educational or professional requirements. We will not ask you about your education, although you’re free to mention it if you think it’s relevant. Although we do ask for two references, these do not need to be employers. They can be anyone who can speak to your abilities and character.
When we say “state violence,” we mean any type of harm government at the local, state, and federal levels inflicts on people and communities. This includes, for example, being in jail, prison and/or immigrant detention; being injured or otherwise mistreated by law enforcement officers; being evicted and/or unable to find safe housing; losing a child to CPS. “Experience” means it’s something that’s happened to you or to a loved one or family member. For instance, you may have been to jail, or you may have a parent or sibling that’s been to jail.
While we believe that anyone has the potential to be a great interviewer, for this particular project we’re interested in the unique insight and expertise interviewers with lived experience bring to the table. We can probably all think of a time when we felt like someone who went through something similar to us understood our situation in a way others did not.
Additionally, as an organization committed to prison abolition and transformative justice, we know we must put into practice the changes we wish to see in the world. Formerly incarcerated people, undocumented immigrants and refugees, and other victims of state violence are all too often not considered for decision-making roles in this work, and that’s not acceptable to us.
You don’t need any formal experience with oral history or interviewing, just a willingness to learn. Instead, ask yourself, Are you curious about other people and their stories? Are you sensitive to other people’s feelings and respectful of their boundaries? Are you a good listener? Do you enjoy having thoughtful conversations with a variety of people?
Because we know that the right candidate for the job may not have prior experience doing this work, we will provide an introductory workshop, and the TAVP staff will be available throughout the course of the project to answer your questions and offer support.
Fellows are paid a stipend and are not salaried employees. Fellows are required to work between 5 and 10 hours a week for the 9-month commitment, and will receive a $10,000 stipend for their time, effort, and work. We set the stipend at this rate to provide decent and fair compensation. In general, a project is called a fellowship because it’s intended to be educational for the fellow and lasts for a limited and set amount of time.
Fellows will learn how to conduct oral history interviews, how to contribute to a community-based archive, and how to share their work with the public.
Oral histories are recorded interviews documenting the life history of a narrator, with a particular focus on certain events or experiences. Oral histories are created to become a part of the historic record so that people in the future will know more about our society and culture today. This is a form of memory work, which simply means interacting with the past (records like letters or journals, old blog posts or newspaper articles, even memories) in order to interpret & explain it to people in the present and people in the future.
Oral history interviews (sometimes called “life history interviews”) can have a powerful impact on our present understanding of our society. TAVP practices something known as “liberatory memory work” which means intentionally practicing memory work for justice. There are many ways memory work like oral histories can be used for justice, including:
- Memorialization of people who have been unjustly killed
- Documentation or research so we have a record of what harm has been done
- Asking for accountability or reparations for harm done
- Storytelling to imagine or describe what a just future might look like
The website TransformHarm.org, created by Mariame Kaba, is a great resource for learning more about transformative justice. Here is a brief description of the concept by Mia Mingus:
If you have additional questions for us, please contact us at staff@texasafterviolence.org, and consider joining us for our online Q&A session, which will take place on Facebook Live on Monday, Oct. 25th, at 6pm.
