Re: Push/pull of non-institutionalized settings

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:05:00 -0700

To David Russell -
thanks for picking up my threads, so to speak, and knitting them into an
other tapestry, as the saying goes, but methinks I spy privilege bleaching
over some of the delicate notions underpinning "institution" as an organism
that writes global lives:

<snip>
>
>I suspect we want to forget about the xmca as institutional for certain
>times and spaces and coversations, conversions. We want sometimes for
>e-mail lists to be more "human", as we want classrooms to be more "human".
>I certainly do.

Hm. Of course, there are times when I want to forget that I am a white
woman, or I want to forget that I won a 4-yr scholarship and my colleague
from Kenya must run around for various faculty members, doing their
photocopying and stapling their pages for a pittance above minimum wage,
but what does this "forgetting" actually enable?

It seems to me that the more "human" thing to do would be to practice a
wariness about institutional privilege, lest we "forget" how that shapes
our assumptions.
(What's that phrase about assumptions? "When you make assumptions, you make
an ASS out of U and ME"... ha ha)

<snip>
>
>Families are where this "comes home" to me. So much of who I am is a given
>from my family. Family for me is an institution only when it is on the
>lips or pen (mounting pin) of a sociologist, as in THE instition of THE
>family. Pe(i)nned down. Reified, commodified, for use in another activity
>system.
>

Case in point, of course, speaking now as a dyke in the academy, families,
as an institution are what give rise to bashings, policies forbidding the
inclusion of children's books about same-sex parents in the classroom; the
refusals to teach about heterosexism in high school sexuality classes, and
so on...forgetting about family-as-an-institution which polices my freedoms
(and lacks, thereof) is impossible for me. Forgetting is, perhaps, a
privilege?

<snip>

>
>To connect with another thread, are there some institutions perceived more
>often as "pulling" rather than "pushing"? When students open textbooks,
>they are not ordinarily aware of all the human activity that went, over
>many generations typically, into the production of the actifact, all the
>battles still going on that will produce the next editions. And they (and
>their teachers) may not be aware that some of the students will keep the
>activity going and make future editions.

Well, I think if there are institutions which are more "pulling" than
"pushing", they might be likened to social vacuums, sucking the very
*difference* out of us... ah. But perhaps I am too harsh.

But jiminy *thanks* for picking this up - I admit I have been afraid to
post to this list (after lurking for over 2 years) because I feared no one
would talk to me. :-)
>
>
>David R. Russell
>English Department
>Iowa State University
>Ames, IA 50011 USA
>(515) 294-4724
>Fax (515) 294-6814
>drrussel who-is-at iastate.edu

"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

"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