Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:24:53 -0600 (MDT)
From: leslie anne lopez <llopez-AT-unm.edu>
Subject: Re:  Re: No Subject


On Mon, 13 Apr 1998, Zona Sur wrote:

that more and more people who go on for advanced degrees are solidly part of
the ruling class.  It doesn't mean they want to be or are even aware of it or
in agreement with that class, but there they are.  Having done nothing.
Having hurt no one.  Simply being able to afford latté while the working class
isn't working and people like you describe are having a hard time, shall we
say, "making ends meet."
> It makes the language that goes with it a little difficult to swallow, though
I understand your strategy.  Language is a funny thing, though; after a while,
it has a strange influence on how one defines or talks about something.

I agree that academic production often does not alleviate suffering, and
that our participation in the global coffee economy merits more
inspection.  (Though I swear I only drink "regular"...).  I also think we
need to look more closely at the privileges and responsibilities that go
along with academic careers, intersected by class, race, gender... but
maybe it's not too helpful to retain the whole "ruling/working" class
split?  Besides the fact that more of us than ever before come from
working/middle class backgrounds, and currently find ourselves somewhere
in the uncertain, uninsured, trying-to-make-ends-meet" category, and the
fact that "the middle class" is being eroded all over the world, and that
really poor people are "underemployed" but work themselves down to nubbins
everyday, maybe we need some new frameworks?  Inclusive frameworks which
don't lose sight of inequity and domination?

Just to bring back the "no subject" thread into its original context, I
was responding to the question of whether there had been any new thinking
on "strategic essentialism."  Here's another possible way to consider how
discourses of "strategic multiplicity" (which I argue are inclusive,
collaborative and integrationist)  differ from "strategic essentialism"
(which I argue is a competitive and potentially separatist discursive
move):  we can ask what makes each move strategic; why do people do/say
what they do; who benefits?

If the strategy is decolonization through separatist nationalism, the
movement/group runs the risk of excluding all people who don't
"essentially" fit the description, and thus making the "real" group
smaller and smaller (but "pure").  (Ironically, often leaders of
nationalist identity-based movements have often in some ways "hybrid"
themselves, but that's a whole nuther can of worms.)  There's much more to
be said about "getting the white man off your eyeball" (A. Walker), as
demonstrated by a flowering poco lit industry, but I'm trying to
synthesize here.

If the strategy is to gather the largest possible group containing
representatives from the most diverse sectors/identities/groups
possible, in order to demonstrate "majority will" around an issue or set
of issues towards decolonization, you run the risk of losing claims to
difference, to alternative traditions, and to administrative control.

Grassroots movements in Latin America are increasingly choosing to risk
the latter, and I guess it won't come as a surprise when I say I consider
myself part of that trend.

In this light, perhaps it's useful to ask ourselves who benefits from
decisions to exclude some regions/nations of the world from the "real"
postcolonial category, and whether the risks are worth it.

Later--
Leslie Lopez



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