File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2004/postanarchism.0409, message 6


From: rodrigoguim-AT-riseup.net
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:42:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] non-essentialism



Besides Spivak's concept of "strategic essentialism", you could read bell
hooks' "Postmodern Blackness" (in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial
Theory: A Reader) for a reflection on the social effects of
essentialism/anti-essentialism divisions.

Rodrigo



> hmmm . . . this is interesting. but the point I'd like to raise is not
> really so much about essentialism / non-essentialism, but the idea of
> "strategic essentialism," which is something that jason mentioned to me in
> conversation this summer in amsterdam but I stupidly enough didn't think
> to ask him for any references or further sources of information on.
>
> what I'm wondering about here is the ways in which essentialist thinking
> and theorizing, even if perhaps problematic on a philosophical level -
> ends up being very useful on a political level. for instance, one could
> easily argue that the zapatista's employ an essentialist conception of
> mayan identity in their rhetoric. or, considering the discourse around
> feminity used by organizers during the Chipko movement in India in the
> 1980's which connected ideas feminity to a greater connection to the
> natural world (ie and therefore the defense of it - which led, at least in
> part to many women chaining themselves to trees and taking forms of direct
> action to stop the corporate plundering the land).
>
> in both of these instances (and a great deal more) one can see ways in
> which essential patterns of thought are being invoked. but I would be very
> hesitant to want to go to organizers and say "stop that! you're being
> essentialist! naughty naughty naughty . . ." which brings me to where
> jason brought up the idea of strategic essentialism, or as I understand it
> that essentialism can be useful in political discourse and organizing even
> if on some level it is questionable (or at least that's what I think was
> being said).
>
> what do other people think of this? are there authors and theorists who
> pursue this line of argument?
>
> cheers.
> Stevphen
>
>
>
>
>
>> not strictly on-topic, but an interesting  paper on non-essentialism,
>> which is probably worth reading given the frequency with which
>> "essentialist" crops up on this list... I've attached the intro...
>>
>> pj
>>
>> ---------------------------
>>
>> http://www.hum.utah.edu/philosophy/faculty/mallon/Materials/NESCTHC.htm
>>
>> Is Non-Essentialism a Substantial Constraint on Theories of Human
>> Categories?
>>
>> Ron Mallon
>>
>> University of Utah
>>
>>
>>
>> DRAFT - COMMENTS WELCOME - PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE - DRAFT
>>
>>
>>
>>   In recent years, numerous articles and books in the humanities and
>> the social sciences have been devoted to understanding the ascription
>> of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental illness, and
>> other 'human kind' concepts to persons. What may be more surprising
>> given the enormous volume of this research and the diversity of its
>> sources is that much of it shares a common commitment, a commitment
>> to understanding the categories picked out by these concepts in an
>> non-essentialist way. For example, Iris Marion Young (1989) suggests
>> of social groups (including races, genders, classes, age groups, and
>> ethnicities) that they,
>>
>> should not be understood as an essence or nature with a specific set
>> of common attributesŠ There is no common nature that members of a
>> group have. (260)
>>
>>
>>
>> The invocation of such a non-essentialism is ubiquitous in social
>> theory, and non-essentialism is widely considered an important
>> constraint that must be met. Charlotte Witt even suggests that
>> "showing a position is 'essentialist' can [in contemporary feminist
>> theory] function in and of itself as a good reason for rejecting it"
>> (1995, 321). But what does it mean to be non-essentialist about such
>> human categories, and what theoretical aims is it meant to achieve?[1]
>>
>> Essentialism is a doctrine with philosophical roots at least as far
>> back as Aristotle, and with a substantial grounding in common sense
>> or 'folk' theorizing about the world (Keil 1989, Gelman et al. 1994,
>> Hirschfeld 1996). The sort of essentialism and non-essentialism with
>> which I am concerned are doctrines regarding categories or types of
>> person as opposed to individuals. There is a voluminous philosophical
>> literature concerned with the possibility that a property or set of
>> properties is necessary to the identity of an individual object.
>> Philosophical concern with personal identity is a special case of
>> this concern. While there are interesting and deep philosophical
>> questions about personal identity raised by an individual's various
>> human kind category (e.g. race, gender, ethnicity, class, etc.)
>> memberships, these questions are orthogonal to my concern here.
>>
>>   Instead, (and like Witt 1995) I aim to understand and evaluate
>> non-essentialism about types of person.[2]  In particular, I consider
>> whether non-essentialism contributes to accomplishing the theoretical
>> aims of anti-essentialists that embrace it. In doing so, I emphasize
>> examples of non-essentialism involving race and gender. These two
>> categories are especially worthy foci for a number of reasons. Both
>> are socially salient, pre-theoretically recognized categories that
>> routinely figure in explanations of putatively natural differences.
>> Each is the subject of numerous anti-essentialist discussions across
>> a wide range of academic fields that, in turn, inform a range of
>> other discussions of human categories.[3]  Moreover, for reasons that
>> will become more clear below, I think non-essentialism is likely true
>> of race and gender. In what follows, I challenge the idea that
>> non-essentialism is a substantial constraint on a theory of a human
>> category, and I argue that a focus on essentialism and
>> non-essentialism has resulted both in a failure to address false and
>> potentially oppressive non-essentialist accounts as well as an
>> unjustified exclusion of plausible accounts of categories from
>> consideration. I argue that these failures as stem from a mistaken
>> assumption regarding the connection between categories with necessary
>> and sufficient conditions and generalizations, and I look to recent
>> developments in philosophy of science to illuminate this mistake.
>>
>
>



   

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