File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postco_1995/postco_Aug.95, message 84


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


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