institutions&complicity

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:30:36 -0700

>>What kinds of complicity retrievable from this discourse do you see,
>>Diane, and
>>how might your incites make the discussion a better medium of/setting for
>>growth of our ideas?
>>mike

Ah. The $64,000.00 question. But...hm. Certainly there is the issue of
exclusivity,
and this is in no way particular to the xmca list, but more endemic to
scholarship practices: something Debord wrote in 1967 plays well here,
when he refers to "...the oldest of all social divisions of labor, the
specialization of power." - Indeed the academic's existence is premised

on a specialization of knowledge, an exclusive contract with an area
or faculty of study -

what *is* wonderful, however, about the xmca-ers, *is* the diversity
of ideas, specializations, and interests.

Nevertheless, undergirding all "specializations",
(and this is now mere opinion, blast-worthy indeed,) there ought to be an
awareness, a critical
edge to the qualities and manifestations of how our "specializations"
collude with assumptions about

"everyone", "the human race", "people", "settings"; "space" and other
deployed terms of privilege & institutionalized power - the questions of
architecture are fascinating, indeed,
but betray a certain assumption about who actually / politically-speaking,
controls, organizes "space" and for whom, premised on whose traditions...
Here at the University of British Columbia, the Centre for First Nations
Study is beautiful, architecturally-speaking,

and yet their library is bare, tiny, stuffy, staffed (and so open) only
part-time, and without the online terminals
and sophisticated reference access which line the hallowed walls in the
"main" libraries which service the dominant student population.
Architectually-sensitive to the First Nations traditions, yet barren to
their educational
rights; respect for their participation as First Nations "people",
but not as First Nations "students"...

(ya but "they" have "their" building, why can't "they" just use "our"
libraries?)

... Or, for instance, when David Russell
used the example of "family" as a "forgettable" institution, he

gestured with one hand towards an assumed collectivity, while blocking from
view, with the
other hand, the notions of difference and how some of us are not in a
position to
forget such institutions.

For myself, it helps me to recall Trinh T. Minha-ha's question,
"Are you seeing it? Hearing it? or projecting it?" -

but after two years of silent lurking, I am now perhaps yakking too much on
this. Kinda like a toy that
has been winding and winding and is suddenly let go - yikes!

but thanks for asking, mike. :-)
diane

At 3:04 PM 9/30/97, Mike Cole wrote:
>Diane asks: Is there... any setting which can be detached from an
>institutional organization?
>
>I really doubt that it would be possible given some normative range
>of notions of setting. I too am interested in complicity and collusion.
>I am thinking here of the McDermott and Dore article on the necessity
>of collusion in all conversation which I think can be straightforwardly
>connected to contemporary uses of the term, discourse.
>
>But institutionally, xmca is a little odd and that oddness is related
>in some measure, to the fact that it is very distributively institutionalized.
>I am in fact asking my friend Yrjo to put the server in Helsinki for
>varoius reasons having to do with effort at institutional cooperation
>and the server for a bilingual course we are doing with Mexican colleagues
>resides in, and is controlled by people in, Pueblo.
>
>What kinds of complicity retrievable from this discourse do you see, Diane, and
>how might your incites make the discussion a better medium of/setting for
>growth of our ideas?
>mike

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"
(Ani Difranco)
*********************************************

diane celia hodges
faculty of graduate studies
(604) 253-4807 centre for the study of curriculum and instruction
university of british columbia,
vancouver, british columbia, canada V6T 1Z4