I've been reading van Dijk's description of CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis), a form of "politically committed" linguistic research, aimed at "resisting social inequality". I'm realising that academics who "do" CDA are also performing a particular identity, one that is imbued with moral rectitude, and are attached to self-identifying as "dissident" (van Dijk's own word).
I find this kinda problematic because I don't want to be forever "dissident", I actually want the world to change in the direction of my ideological commitments. Despite declaring "solidarity and cooperation with dominated groups", CDA analysts are paradoxically complicit in reifying the position of the "dominated," and their own position as the "good" supporters of the dominated.
Perhaps I don't have a sufficiently convincing argument on this point, perhaps I have merely a collection of anecdotes and reflections. But one telling point is a footnote: "Space limitations prevent discussion of ... how dominated groups discursively challenge or resist the control of powerful groups." ... Ah, yes those perpetual "space limitations" that mean that "dominated groups", as always, are not accorded discursive space. That, surely, is perpetuating the problem?? As Said (quoting Marx) put it so well in Orientalism: "They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented." CDA continues this veritable tradition of constructing oneself as benevolent, well-disposed towards those "dominated groups" while continuing to take up space - which is itself a form of "domination"!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
language, polysemy and disambiguation
So, I've been reading Richard Dyer's brilliant book White. He writes so much that is useful to what I'm doing, but what I want to flag here is his idea (contra my most recent post) that race has historically been constructed as "the conflation of body and temperament" (1997:18) - that is, it hasn't just been understood as a physicality, it has been imbued with meaning in regards to personal qualities too. I think my taxonomy still holds, though, it's just that today, we are encouraged to talk about "cultural diversity" as a euphemism for race, and this is meant, somehow, to be colour-blind.
Anyway, the other thing that's been on my mind is the way in which so many of the words I want to use specifically to disambiguate between physicality and personality are actually polysemously related to both. E.g:
(i) pathological: I wanted to refer to mental distress as being constructed as biological (by Beyond Blue and co.), and thus removed from any sense of personal failure. I wanted to use the term "de-pathologized" to mean that mentally distressed people are (re)defined as ill rather than personally flawed. I mean, for example, the way the term pathological is used in phrases like "pathological liar" or "pathologically late". Well, then, I examined the term pathological and realised it is used in a medical sense to describe disease - that is, pathology is inherently about biology! AAARGH! This ambiguity that I want to draw attention to is embedded in the very polysemic nature (ie multiple meanings) of the word pathological - it can refer to both biology and personality, albeit in different contexts.
(ii) similarly, I am still seeking a word to contrast with physicality in my 4-way grid. I've considered personality, temperament, disposition, character, affiliation ... the problem is largely that I want a word that makes sense both for individual personal traits and collective affiliational traits. I thought maybe temperament could be a good option, since that's what Dyer used in the quote above. But then, Wiki tells me this:
Temperament is defined as that part of the personality which is genetically based. Along with character, and those aspects acquired through learning, the two together are said to constitute personality. (from entry on Temperament, accessed today)
I keep finding terms that have been used by psychology or psychiatry or medicine in ways that biologise concepts that are also commonly understood in other ways.
Ok, that's all for now :>
Anyway, the other thing that's been on my mind is the way in which so many of the words I want to use specifically to disambiguate between physicality and personality are actually polysemously related to both. E.g:
(i) pathological: I wanted to refer to mental distress as being constructed as biological (by Beyond Blue and co.), and thus removed from any sense of personal failure. I wanted to use the term "de-pathologized" to mean that mentally distressed people are (re)defined as ill rather than personally flawed. I mean, for example, the way the term pathological is used in phrases like "pathological liar" or "pathologically late". Well, then, I examined the term pathological and realised it is used in a medical sense to describe disease - that is, pathology is inherently about biology! AAARGH! This ambiguity that I want to draw attention to is embedded in the very polysemic nature (ie multiple meanings) of the word pathological - it can refer to both biology and personality, albeit in different contexts.
(ii) similarly, I am still seeking a word to contrast with physicality in my 4-way grid. I've considered personality, temperament, disposition, character, affiliation ... the problem is largely that I want a word that makes sense both for individual personal traits and collective affiliational traits. I thought maybe temperament could be a good option, since that's what Dyer used in the quote above. But then, Wiki tells me this:
Temperament is defined as that part of the personality which is genetically based. Along with character, and those aspects acquired through learning, the two together are said to constitute personality. (from entry on Temperament, accessed today)
I keep finding terms that have been used by psychology or psychiatry or medicine in ways that biologise concepts that are also commonly understood in other ways.
Ok, that's all for now :>
Thursday, November 15, 2007
re-evaluating non-normative behaviour/identities
OK, so it's been forever since I wrote, but there has been some progress!
I'm working through an idea about categories of stigma (or devalued difference, or non-normativity), based on Erving Goffman's seminal work Stigma (1963).
My theory is that different types of stigma can be categorized, as being one of:
*individual-physical (e.g. depression, if it's understood as chemical imbalance in the brain)
*individual-dispositional (e.g. criminal behaviour, if it's understood as bad behaviour)
*collective-physical (e.g. "racial" characteristics, or congenital deafness)
*collective-dispositional (e.g. political beliefs, religious affiliations, cultural affiliations)
So, I arrange this in a 4-way grid (which I can't construct on this blog, but you get the idea)
My theory is that advocates for particular "devalued identity groups" (for want of a better term) try to "position" behaviours/identities in either the individual-physical quadrant, or in the collective-dispositional quadrant. These two quadrants, I argue are where positive valuation of an identity/behaviour is most often attributable, and I call this a form of "rehabilitation" of particular identities.
So, for example, we get anti-stigma campaigns around mental illness (e.g. Beyond Blue) arguing that depression is an illness, a chemical imbalance in the brain (and therefore individual-physical). This understanding contrasts with Goffman, for whom mental illness was categorizable as a "blemish of individual character" (and therefore individual-dispositional). Argualy, there's still the potential today for depressive behaviour to be understood as dispositional (e.g. someone is just 'lazy', 'grumpy', 'selfish', 'unmotivated', etc). I interpret contemporary anti-stigma campaigns as pro-actively countering such a potential understanding, and (re)positioning depression in the individual-physical domain.
Conversely, discourses of "cultural diversity" position "race" within discourses of "culture",. This arguably (re)positions what could be understood as a biological/physical characteristic, as a dispositional characteristic. (In my interpretation of Goffman, he positions race as collective-physical).
Contemporary understandings of homosexuality are interesting because it is sometimes biologized (e.g. the gay gene), and hence located as individual-physical, and sometimes politically/collectively understood (e.g. the woman-identified woman of lesbian feminism, the socially constructed non-normative sexualities of queer theory). Arguably, these latter conceptions are collective-dispositional. Goffman's understanding of homosexuality , like mental illness, would be described as individual-dispositional; in his time it was both criminal and pathological.
And here's where I see the most interesting link to today: there are forms of deviant behaviour that still today understandable as individual-dispositional - prototypically due to either bad character (as evidenced by criminality or other anti-social behaviour or psychopathological irrationality, and I mean here pathological not in the technical sense of disease, but in the folk sense of "bad in the head"). Now of course, there are intellectual/political understandings that challenge these characterisations (e.g. esp. in the field of criminology!), but I strongly believe that these two categories are the prototypical examples of what I call "unrehabilitated" identity.
The texts that I am looking at often distance their particular, "rehabilitable" identity from these categories, e.g.
-asylum seekers are described as "not criminal"
-depression is described as biological (and hence not "pathologically bad")
Conversely, a behaviour/identity can be discredited by (re)positioning it as individual-dispositional e.g. the G20 protesters are framed as (individual) criminals, rather than political dissidents acting collectively. Finally, there are also some dissenters/outsiders who valorize their individual-dispositional "badness" e.g. the "outlaw", the "queer radical," etc.
What do you think??
I'm working through an idea about categories of stigma (or devalued difference, or non-normativity), based on Erving Goffman's seminal work Stigma (1963).
My theory is that different types of stigma can be categorized, as being one of:
*individual-physical (e.g. depression, if it's understood as chemical imbalance in the brain)
*individual-dispositional (e.g. criminal behaviour, if it's understood as bad behaviour)
*collective-physical (e.g. "racial" characteristics, or congenital deafness)
*collective-dispositional (e.g. political beliefs, religious affiliations, cultural affiliations)
So, I arrange this in a 4-way grid (which I can't construct on this blog, but you get the idea)
My theory is that advocates for particular "devalued identity groups" (for want of a better term) try to "position" behaviours/identities in either the individual-physical quadrant, or in the collective-dispositional quadrant. These two quadrants, I argue are where positive valuation of an identity/behaviour is most often attributable, and I call this a form of "rehabilitation" of particular identities.
So, for example, we get anti-stigma campaigns around mental illness (e.g. Beyond Blue) arguing that depression is an illness, a chemical imbalance in the brain (and therefore individual-physical). This understanding contrasts with Goffman, for whom mental illness was categorizable as a "blemish of individual character" (and therefore individual-dispositional). Argualy, there's still the potential today for depressive behaviour to be understood as dispositional (e.g. someone is just 'lazy', 'grumpy', 'selfish', 'unmotivated', etc). I interpret contemporary anti-stigma campaigns as pro-actively countering such a potential understanding, and (re)positioning depression in the individual-physical domain.
Conversely, discourses of "cultural diversity" position "race" within discourses of "culture",. This arguably (re)positions what could be understood as a biological/physical characteristic, as a dispositional characteristic. (In my interpretation of Goffman, he positions race as collective-physical).
Contemporary understandings of homosexuality are interesting because it is sometimes biologized (e.g. the gay gene), and hence located as individual-physical, and sometimes politically/collectively understood (e.g. the woman-identified woman of lesbian feminism, the socially constructed non-normative sexualities of queer theory). Arguably, these latter conceptions are collective-dispositional. Goffman's understanding of homosexuality , like mental illness, would be described as individual-dispositional; in his time it was both criminal and pathological.
And here's where I see the most interesting link to today: there are forms of deviant behaviour that still today understandable as individual-dispositional - prototypically due to either bad character (as evidenced by criminality or other anti-social behaviour or psychopathological irrationality, and I mean here pathological not in the technical sense of disease, but in the folk sense of "bad in the head"). Now of course, there are intellectual/political understandings that challenge these characterisations (e.g. esp. in the field of criminology!), but I strongly believe that these two categories are the prototypical examples of what I call "unrehabilitated" identity.
The texts that I am looking at often distance their particular, "rehabilitable" identity from these categories, e.g.
-asylum seekers are described as "not criminal"
-depression is described as biological (and hence not "pathologically bad")
Conversely, a behaviour/identity can be discredited by (re)positioning it as individual-dispositional e.g. the G20 protesters are framed as (individual) criminals, rather than political dissidents acting collectively. Finally, there are also some dissenters/outsiders who valorize their individual-dispositional "badness" e.g. the "outlaw", the "queer radical," etc.
What do you think??
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