In a 2013 TED talk, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke about the danger of a single story. \u201cThe single story creates stereotypes,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the problem with stereotypes is not that they\u2019re untrue, but that they\u2019re incomplete. They make one story become the only story.\u201d<\/p>\n
A single story\u2014in this case, an article\u2014from August got the attention of Jonathan Burdick, dean of admissions and financial aid.<\/p>\n
The article? Business Insider<\/em>\u2019s compilation of \u201cThe 11 Least \u2018Livable\u2019 Cities in the World.\u201d Burdick saw the list of cities deemed \u201cdifficult to live in,\u201d and wanted to hear what Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ students from those cities had to say.<\/p>\n During this year\u2019s International Education Week, the University\u2019s Renaissance and Global Scholars convened a seven-student panel discussion on the topic. The panel featured:<\/p>\n Panelists introduced themselves, shared the opportunities and challenges of life in their hometowns (as well as in Rochester), and debated the purpose and methodology of the survey on livability. By sharing their thoughts and perspectives, the panelists pushed back on the single story of these rankings. Furthermore, they offered the audience\u2014comprising Rochester natives and international students alike\u2014a more nuanced understanding of the world.<\/p>\n \u201cAssessing livability is inherently qualitative. A problematic list like this sheds light on biases in perspective,\u201d remarked Aziz, who was raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh, before coming to Rochester. He argued that such rankings constitute \u201cstrategic deployment of oppression\u201d and perpetuate perceptions of these countries as \u201cbackward, conservative, not up-to-date.\u201d<\/p>\n Other panelists also highlighted the survey\u2019s reductive approach. For example, Asunmonu pointed out that Lagos was listed, in part, because of instability. The survey attributed the low stability score to Boko Haram, the militant Islamist movement based in northeast Nigeria. That\u2019s an almost 20-hour drive from the capital, approximately the distance between Rochester and Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not trying to be insensitive to the people who face that reality, but the city of Lagos is not the same as the entire country of Nigeria,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nFirst-hand perspectives<\/h3>\n
\n
Learning from each other, making the world Ever Better<\/h3>\n