Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 09:53:39 -0700
Subject: RE: quite simply put...some more worms to can...


I suspect that we get the theorist and the theory mixed up in some bizarre 
way in which the theorist is the embodiment of the authority of the theory 
rather than just a place of theoretical emergence...they are then 
"authorities" and representative and need to be critiqued rather than be 
seen as a place of emergence....
I asked about Margaret Archer because I am interested in the issues of 
emergence as a systems phenomenon....(I prefer the term "morphogenic" 
rather than her term "morphogenetic") ...
when aihwa Ong provides us with examples of "primitive" expression (all 
sorts of spirit sicknesses) alive and well in the sweatshops of capitalism 
we really do need to take notice because I think that she is showing us 
something about the emergence of new embodied forms that are shifting and 
which are still largely unspeakable.....I am thinking about how "family 
violence" is framed....particularly in ethnic minorities in America, 
notably among Blacks and Native Americans...

....we are still mainly speaking about objects rather than seeing ourselves 
in changing systems of being/thinking/speaking......

how can said and ong and spivak see what they say is a much more important 
question for me....

In Nuu-chah-nulth culture there is a saying that one needs to watch for the 
"little person", the place of emergence between what is visible and what is 
becoming visible...a culturally encoded cue....for waiting for 
revelation...it puts a very dynamic slant on theory for me that is 
inseparable from practice...




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