Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 12:12:18 CST From: s66190-AT-cc.ntnu.edu.tw (95030009-2) Subject: Re: Time zone cow sounds Stephanie Gilbert wrote: "I am sick of Indigenous men and their issues taken to be "the issues" "the experts". I am, along with other Indigenous Australians, very concerned about all Indigenous Australians but am also sick of patriarchy being reinforced everyday in our communities by those outside the communities." The issue raised here is of a certain nativism which is produced by those whose concern is to investigate one kind of difference, failing to be aware of the effects of other kinds of difference within their "field of study" (ie anthropologists or whoever else is looking at, say, Indigenous peoples in Australia, failing to take account of gender difference or difference in sexual orientation, within the groups of people they're talking about.) It seems to me that discussion of these issues makes very clear the necessarily multiple subject-positions any subject must occupy, as well as making impossible any notion of an essential or complete "identity", whether that be based on ethnicity ("Aborigine"), gender ("woman"), sexual orientation ("lesbian") or whatever. Surely these questions which so problematise the idea of essential and unquestioned identity are absolutely crucial to any consideration of "post-coloniality"? It seems like Gareth and Parlo have kind of equitably resolved their conflict now, but I'd still like to say that what Gareth was saying about his perceived problems about criticiam of "the enemy within" made me very uncomfortable in the light of what I've written above. It seems Gareth was criticising Parlo for drawing attention to issues of difference inside the group of proponents of post-colonial theory, and the questions of who is authorised to speak, and whether and how they get heard. He implied that the raising of issues of internal difference and dissent was comparable to "internecine struggles" which tore apart the Left in the sixties. I just wonder how attention to internal tensions, multiplicity, and conflict - inside an area ostensibly concerned with a critique of essential identities - can be criticised for being "divisive"? As Parlo later responded, surely attention to internal difference should be the starting-point of a politics which seeks to deal with issues of difference. What I'm saying, I suppose, is I don't see how these are somehow "side-issues" to the field of post-colonial theory, as Gareth seems to imply in subsequent posts. I don't think a questioning of identity-politics can be said to "narrow" such a debate as this. As Stephanie said, the point should be to question representations which silence difference, like the nativist one which constructs "Abrorgine" as male and certainly straight. Otherwise how are we being consistent with our own politics which ostensibly wants to question the colonial definition of "human" as white (and male and straight)? Gareth, I realise your posts weren't directed specifically at what Stephanie wrote, but it seemed to me that some of the issues intersected. I hope I'm not wasting people's time bringing up things you had alrealdy resolved. Fran Martin, Taipei --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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