Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:52:30 +0000
From: H.Robinson-AT-ulst.ac.uk (Hilary Robinson)
Subject: Re: Re:Essentialism and Politics


This is a little late, I know, but I've only just read Judith's message.

>The problem I see in Irigaray's work, though, is that she doesn't seem to 
>be starting from an appeal to her own experience as a woman (and we'd 
>have to say, as a white, middle-class, heterosexual, academic woman) but 
>from a more fundamental claim about "the way things are."

Could we complicate this a little? Luce Irigaray has always been very
circumspect about divulging her circumstances and biography, and I'd be a
little wary of applying class and sexual preference labels to someone who
has not self-identified in a particular way. I think there are some subtle
differences between US identity politics and how (western) europeans might
regard that issue, though I'm not sure how to tease that one out. Certainly
'cultural diversity' can often mean something in europe (I live in Belfast,
N. Ireland, for instance... you may have heard something of our cultural
diversity questions here ;-)  )  and differences in cultural identity
between countries can be enormous and lead to tension. A woman of LI's age
would have experienced WWII as a child or young woman, and the occupation
of her country by another, with all that implies. LI, according to the one
biography I've seen for her, was born in Belgium - which, famously, is
bi-lingual, bi-religious, and bi-cultural - and didn't leave until she was
30. She has claimed some Italian ancestry (I forget where, sorry); and I
have been told that her surname is Basque - where serious conflict over
land, culture, language, and self-determination (similar to the conflict in
N. Ireland) has smoldered for a long time. So while she is 'white', her
cultural and political affiliations may well be much more complex than that
one word evokes. I'm not trying to chase down some 'authentic' identity for
LI, but rather to raise questions about that whole issue. 

btw, isn't it interesting that the 3 women that anglo-phone feminism has
made examplars of French feminism should be LI, Cixous, and Kristeva -
Cixous being Algerian/german/Jewish, Kristeva Bulgarian? - though no doubt
it's more complex than that! :-)

re: the point about theory/activism in LI's work: _I Love to You_ is
interesting in this respect, coming as it did out of working with the youth
movement of the PCI (Italian COmmunist Party). Here, she was working with a
mixed group, having to learn Italian; also the politics, structures and
strategies of the PCI (and of the Italian women's movement) are very
particular, differing certainly from the CP in France and elsewhere. It
will be interesting to see how LI's Italian work - executed in non-academic
surroundings, and mostly not translated into French or English yet - will
be recieved. I know there has been some resentment in Italy in the
psychoanalytic field that, as a foreign 'star' she was granted privileged
access to Italian publishing, and also that this writing was not engaged
theoretically with psychoanalysis as some of her earlier work.  


Hilary




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