It's been a while since I wrote. But today's been one of those days that you know you won't forget. This morning jan and I got up and watched Rudd's apology speech to the Stolen Generation. I was spell bound and sincerely touched, deeply.
I didn't expect it - I'm usually pretty jaded when it comes to political rhetoric, and often critical of public speeches of goodwill (after all, that's what I'm doing my thesis about!) Maybe it was the editing, the pastiche of proud faces of Indigenous people, at last being publicly dignified by a political leader. Or maybe it was just a huge relief, astonishment that Rudd got it right, he said exactly what I thought needed to be said, and it seemed sincere and appropriate. Whatever it was, it gave me chills. I felt, in my body, a sudden pride ... not exactly nationalism, more like a sense of welcome, finally being able to be in Australia without a nagging ambivalence. I'm not fully able to articulate it, because it doesn't fully make sense - the apology was "about" the Stolen Generation and the role the government had in it. But it had an electricity, a sense that it meant so much more in the process of reconciliation.
It hit me, powerfully, that generations of Aboriginal people have held out hands of peace, despite all the grievances they could raise. What generosity of spirit they must have found within themselves, to decide to seek reconciliation rather than nourish bitterness. It reminds me of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, less dramatic, but no less suffering. I don't know that I'd have that generosity. I suddenly felt a very personal, embodied sense of why alcoholism and other substance abuse are so endemic in Indigenous communities. I feel it in my body, that if I were part of a community that had experienced what Indigenous people have collectively experienced, I *know* I'd seek solace in self-destructive behaviours. Today, I suddenly experienced profound respect for Indigenous leaders, big and small, who support their community, and face their own grief and/or bitterness.
I hope, hope, hope, that the future holds greater trust and involvement of Aboriginal people in decisions that affect their lives. For me, trust is central. Aboriginal people know what they need, how to organise themselves and their communities, and what they don't already know, they need respectful support, resources and time to work through in their own way. It's such a basic trust that everyone deserves, especially those who tend to be treated with paternalism - Indigenous people, people suffering mental distress, prisoners, children, people who are intellectually slow ... I do hope that the respect shown today continues to guide this continent in the future.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Critical Discourse Analysis
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"!
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"!
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??
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Who is the Other?
I just realised now that the Other as a concept can be prominalised as either "you" or "them." This differential pronominalisation has massive consequences for the ethical relationship between the Self and Other.
If the relationship is "you and me/us," then there is a connection, a dialogue, arguably an ethical relationship. This is a relationship between two subjectivities.
By contrast, if the relationship is "them and me/us," this is an objectifying relationship, one that does not entail dialogue, relationship or connection.
I read the following passage in an article I was reading for my thesis (Riggins, 'The rhetoric of Othering'): "Self and external Other may be understood as unique individuals (I and You) or as collectives that are thought to share similar characteristics (We and They)." I think Riggins here is trying to contrast the idea of individuals vs collectives (singular vs plural), but in shifting from the singular to the plural, he also changed person - from second to third. This slippage seems remarkable to me, but is perhaps common.
I wonder if this has a relationship with how people perceive Others - like you know how prejudiced people sometimes individualise the specific Others that they know, in contrast to the amorphous Them? So for example, you get sentiments like "I don't like Asians, I know Michael is Asian, but he's different to the rest of them" or "Homosexuals are such and such, but Jane is OK."
I've been thinking for a while now that part of the process of de-Othering is establishing relationships of dialogue, changing "us/them" relationships into "us/you."
If the relationship is "you and me/us," then there is a connection, a dialogue, arguably an ethical relationship. This is a relationship between two subjectivities.
By contrast, if the relationship is "them and me/us," this is an objectifying relationship, one that does not entail dialogue, relationship or connection.
I read the following passage in an article I was reading for my thesis (Riggins, 'The rhetoric of Othering'): "Self and external Other may be understood as unique individuals (I and You) or as collectives that are thought to share similar characteristics (We and They)." I think Riggins here is trying to contrast the idea of individuals vs collectives (singular vs plural), but in shifting from the singular to the plural, he also changed person - from second to third. This slippage seems remarkable to me, but is perhaps common.
I wonder if this has a relationship with how people perceive Others - like you know how prejudiced people sometimes individualise the specific Others that they know, in contrast to the amorphous Them? So for example, you get sentiments like "I don't like Asians, I know Michael is Asian, but he's different to the rest of them" or "Homosexuals are such and such, but Jane is OK."
I've been thinking for a while now that part of the process of de-Othering is establishing relationships of dialogue, changing "us/them" relationships into "us/you."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
timetabling my life
For the past fortnight, I've been time-tabling my time on study days (Monday-Friday). It was something I've known for a while would help to increase my productivity, but at a cost of sponteneity and a sense of freedom. I used to do it in the later years of high school, and it worked well, but meant that I wasn't very spontaneous or social. So for several months I resisted the idea of getting back into that way of being. But I realised that a lack of structure also had its own associated stresses for me - ironically, I was increasingly coming to feel like I had no control over my time, because every minute could be thesis time! And, my notes and texts and forms were all getting jumbled on my desk, and it was all seeming to get more and more out of control.
I think the main problem is that I LOVE to read, and I LOVE to garden, and I LOVE to make things, and I LOVE to hang out with my loved ones, ... well the point here is that there are many things that I love, and they could theoretically fill all my time. But doing a Phd also involves things that are less fun, like writing up my notes (way less interesting than reading new material), organising my materials (again, less interesting than other stuff), etc. So, some things simply weren't getting done - there was always something more fun to do.
I was getting stressed, though, cos these "unfinished" things were all mentally filed away somewhere in my head as "things I should have done." It's like that some people can work quite happily like that, either getting through with a degree of disorganisation, or just knowing how to work things out for themselves. But it was driving me nuts!
So I've been experimenting with making lists every morning (what a treat! I LOVE making lists! ticking things off is such a delight!), dividing up my time, usually with a few hours of unstructured time (before 9, around lunch and early evening) to do whatever I please. That allows me a degree of sponteneity, and if something comes up during "work" time, I have some flexibility to shift time around. And, I take notes at the end of each day on how my timetabling worked out in practice (e.g. "Need a full half-hour to get ready for and then get to pilates;" "needed two-hour block, not one-hour block, for writing", etc).
It's working so far. I feel like I have MORE time to do what I want. Which is cool. We'll see if after a while it feels draconian or imprisoning. But I'm definitely getting more work done and my stress levels are way better, so that's it's thumbs up so far.
I think the main problem is that I LOVE to read, and I LOVE to garden, and I LOVE to make things, and I LOVE to hang out with my loved ones, ... well the point here is that there are many things that I love, and they could theoretically fill all my time. But doing a Phd also involves things that are less fun, like writing up my notes (way less interesting than reading new material), organising my materials (again, less interesting than other stuff), etc. So, some things simply weren't getting done - there was always something more fun to do.
I was getting stressed, though, cos these "unfinished" things were all mentally filed away somewhere in my head as "things I should have done." It's like that some people can work quite happily like that, either getting through with a degree of disorganisation, or just knowing how to work things out for themselves. But it was driving me nuts!
So I've been experimenting with making lists every morning (what a treat! I LOVE making lists! ticking things off is such a delight!), dividing up my time, usually with a few hours of unstructured time (before 9, around lunch and early evening) to do whatever I please. That allows me a degree of sponteneity, and if something comes up during "work" time, I have some flexibility to shift time around. And, I take notes at the end of each day on how my timetabling worked out in practice (e.g. "Need a full half-hour to get ready for and then get to pilates;" "needed two-hour block, not one-hour block, for writing", etc).
It's working so far. I feel like I have MORE time to do what I want. Which is cool. We'll see if after a while it feels draconian or imprisoning. But I'm definitely getting more work done and my stress levels are way better, so that's it's thumbs up so far.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
territorial propriety
Rey Chow, an American cultural theorist with roots in Hong Kong, writes that she speaks from a position as someone who does "not have claims to territorial propriety or cultural centrality." I'd never really thought about the spatial nature of cultural marginality before.
But when I think about it, I recognise this in myself as a queer, and in the context of disability too. For example, one of my texts claims "this is our community" referring to disabled people; but in doing so, the text reflects the fact that this could be doubted; it's kinda like John Howard (was it?) declaring to a room of Greek-Australians that "I see before me Australians". Like anyone else present doubted this??
Historically, disabled people have been socially excluded spatially, like non-Anglos have been, internally contained in institutions, and prevented from entering the country through immigration policies (that continue to this day to specifically exclude disabled people as potential migrants).
It's less clear how queers are spatially excluded. As a queer, I read in the papers today that Howard continues to assert that people in same-sex relationships should not have equal rights as de facto heteros; Romana the queer officer at UMPA wrote a great article in the recent UMPA mag about how queers are excluded on campus through the heteronormativity of the environment- that is, even where homophobia isn't as overt as Howard wishes it were, there is an exclusion through a lack of visibility, or overt inclusion.
By the way, as a complete aside, one of the women in a reading group I'm in said yesterday that the Vietnamese expression for "Vietnamese-Australian" is "Australian with roots in Vietnam". Isn't that interesting? I think it conveys a relationship with Vietnam and Vietnamese identity that is quite different from the essentialising expression "Vietnamese-Australian."
But when I think about it, I recognise this in myself as a queer, and in the context of disability too. For example, one of my texts claims "this is our community" referring to disabled people; but in doing so, the text reflects the fact that this could be doubted; it's kinda like John Howard (was it?) declaring to a room of Greek-Australians that "I see before me Australians". Like anyone else present doubted this??
Historically, disabled people have been socially excluded spatially, like non-Anglos have been, internally contained in institutions, and prevented from entering the country through immigration policies (that continue to this day to specifically exclude disabled people as potential migrants).
It's less clear how queers are spatially excluded. As a queer, I read in the papers today that Howard continues to assert that people in same-sex relationships should not have equal rights as de facto heteros; Romana the queer officer at UMPA wrote a great article in the recent UMPA mag about how queers are excluded on campus through the heteronormativity of the environment- that is, even where homophobia isn't as overt as Howard wishes it were, there is an exclusion through a lack of visibility, or overt inclusion.
By the way, as a complete aside, one of the women in a reading group I'm in said yesterday that the Vietnamese expression for "Vietnamese-Australian" is "Australian with roots in Vietnam". Isn't that interesting? I think it conveys a relationship with Vietnam and Vietnamese identity that is quite different from the essentialising expression "Vietnamese-Australian."
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