At 08:01 AM 1/17/96 -0500, BPenuel who-is-at aol.com wrote:
>Emily-
>
> Thanks for that reference. Could you say more about the book and its
>arguments?
Okay - here it goes...
Chow argues that some theories in cultural studies are flawed in the
following ways:
1. some theorists hold on to essentialist notions of "culture" and "history"
and devalue the authority of marginalized people whose writing does not
reflect the "authentic" culture. For example, one scholar claimed that "the
disease of modern Chinese poetry is that it is too Westernized." She argues
that these theorists feel threatened when "third world poets" write in
Westernized manner. This is because their success was contingent upon
describing the "authenticity" of the Third World country's culture, and any
writings that reflect a transnational culture negatively affect their
credibility.
2. These theorists are often also dependent on the notions of
"nation-states". Cultural pluralists especially use nationalism to
contextualize (e.g., Chinese women, Chinese state, Chinese family); this,
they contend, avoids essentialism. But Chow argues that this is also a form
of cultural essentialism because it does not take into account any
transnational phenomena, such as imperialism. "Chinese" and "Japanese" are
justdifferent from each other. As a result, people treat them as having
"distinct" histories and instead of analyzing how the histories of China and
Japan are linked to each other and to the "West".
3. Other theorists have a tendency to identify with the "Other",
highlighting the other's powerlessness, and often valorizing "the other's
oppression". (She calls these theorists "Maoists".) For example, some have
characterized poverty in China as "spiritually ennobling, since it meant
that [the] Chinese were not possessed by the wasteful and acquisitive
consumerism of the United States." These scholars generalize all third
world people as "subaltern" and use them to oppose an essentialized West.
Heterogeneity within either of these groups is ignored. Worse yet, the
language used to describe the oppressed is often co-opted by the scholars
themselves. For example, one professor complained that he was "victimized"
by the rigid time schedule at an Ivy League school. This co-optation
renders the vocabulary useless which oppresses the powerless even more.
She advocates "writing diaspora": unlearning the "submission to one's
ethnicity... as the ultimate signified" while at the same time fighting for
democracy and human rights. She wants to examine how the dominant
conceptualizations of solidarities were created so that we don't make the
same mistake in the future. In examining their strategies, we can better
see how they used the concept of the "other" to empower themselves. To
"write diaspora" we have to learn how to use "tactics" ("calculated actions
determined by the absence of a proper locus"). Using tactics allows us to
create our representations based on time and need instead of space. This
decentering avoids essentialism because the representation is constantly
being contested, but it is helpful because we can still explain how
subordination occurs. (Chapters 2 through 8 describe various tactics we
could use. They're really packed with info, and honestly, I can't summarize
them all right now. But I hope this helps!)
=)
emily
Reference: Chow, R. (1993). _Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention
in Contemporary Cultural Studies_. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Emily Ignacio
Dept. of Sociology
326 Lincoln Hall
702 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
tel: (217) 244-8985
(217) 244-7343
(217) 333-1950