The image I kept getting while reading through these articles on experience, representation and diaspora was one of the Hoberman Expanding Sphere. I generally work better with images. In this sphere, everything is connected and bends, expands and contracts, can be closer to another section sometimes and far from it with an adjustment of the way it is managed. With the speed at which globalization continues to take hold and move people and manipulate systems and social structures, I also feel like the diaspora and experience of ruptures discussed in these articles become increasingly intricate. There are more opportunities for rupture - in physical as well as digital space. The commodification of people, gender, education, labor etc etc through digital economies is just as strong in some places now as historic mass movements of people for these same topics. I feel like the linearity of life in not simply ruptured by numerous offshoots of “other” but exploded like a supernova.
Of course through systems of power people, people utilize whichever section of their identity allows them the best posturing in that moment, even in research. I think Abu-lughod makes an interesting statement about power in mentioning how unnecessary the distance between researcher and subject might be. When researchers define themselves as outsiders of those they study, is it truly an act of humility or is it a positioning of power. Those of us in the American academy assume one of the most powerful positions, meaning that our disclosures, considerations, and ethics around our research subjects become compulsory. It made me wonder, though, when people from academies in “developing nations” come to study American subjects, do they do as much expository work on themselves or is even this a habit only of people with power (Diaz & Kauanui, pp 324). Should we instead be trying to find our similarities? Should we redirect our writing into a different kind of neutral?
What struck me most about Abu-Lughod’s piece is it’s commentary on the posturing of power when approaching research. I was particularly struck by her statement on page 147 that “Practice is associated, in anthropology, with Bourdieu whose theoretical approach is built around problems of contradictions, misunderstanding, and misrecognition, and favors strategies, interests, and improvisations over the more static and homogenizing cultural tropes of rules, models, and texts.” I think this statement points toward an anthropological practice of pure observation of artifacts and practices of individuals but warns that the researcher will always fail in interpreting the private motivation of individuals. Even within collectivist cultures, we do not function like the Borg and should not pretend or assume to know each others’ minds. We all have differences and to claim that a group of one hundred is like one thing promptly insults the other ninety-nine members of the group. So if we approach anthropology as such, we might begin to avoid sweeping generalization and misinformed proclamations about the habits of “the others.”
I found Diaz and Kauanui and Clifford interesting in that they discuss the idea that no one who is living on island nations or territories can truly claim an origin story with ownership to the island. (Isn’t in the same for continental land as well?) Everyone now is a product of i/emmigration. Does this statement give power to or take it away from those in the diaspora? Diaz & Kauanui and Hall both mention ideas of triangulation of cultural practices - that one’s identity in the diaspora is developed between cultural heritage passed generationally, the place they began, the place they now reside in and the newly adapted cultural practices. Is it ever possible to say anymore that any cultural practice or identity is “pure?” Does the idea of purity assume essentialism from the outset? Does this give or take away legitimacy of cultural studies?
So to move away from imperialism and colonialism (if this was truly our aim) implies that research might stop, that folks from the academy would stop trying to interpret who and what people are based on observations that cannot properly box up a ruptured life experience. Of course, research will not stop, so how do we instead, lessen the inherent oppression of creating a "subject" out of someone or a group?
No comments:
Post a Comment