Date: Sun, 04 Feb 1996 19:25:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: BINA MITTAL <bmittal-AT-TrentU.ca>
Subject: identity
To: South Asian net <seminar-13-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Cc: BMITTAL <BMITTAL-AT-TrentU.ca>


I am getting closer and farther away from what I first proposed, i think!
Radhika, your post taken from _Thinking it Through_ was layered!  I'm not 
sure how to unpack that except maybe to say that Bannerji sees identity 
as being a construction made up of gender, "race," class, politics and 
histories (inseparable from one another).  
If my reading of this particular piece understands it to mean that 
Identity has become tokenistic in cultural and structural spheres, I 
would agree.  I think her latter statement is about the exclusion of this 
important and often times, invisible experiences of class.
What have I left out?  Much!
Jaspal:  you mentioned something about "madness."  I'm noot sure where 
you are going with this, and I know it may be stretching it a little to 
find room within my work, but I know I ma not exempt.  Bannerji makes an 
intriguing point about violence:  "It is about violence and 
disassociation, which in part actually produces fantastic personality 
disorders or physiological-emotional dsorders.  You feel like you could 
kill, quite frequently, and you feel often that you are being killed."  
To me, this speaks of madness.  Yes.  This whole construction of identity 
may very well allude to this unkindness which causes people to re/act in 
ways unlike themselves.  They have changed/are changing.  How much agency 
is there?
So how does this relate to acculturation again???? 

sigh.
-Bina