Hi Phil and everybody--
Phil wrote,
> what Leigh Star has indicated keeps methods of oppression normalized -
> routinized - from, as Eugene has pointed out, boarding schools for
> native americans, to, as Ogbu has pointed out, normal schools of public
> education, including schools of education within universities.
I'm thinking how else describe the process besides normalization and
routinization. In the mood of creation of new English words, I 'd add one
more "tion" to describe another aspect of sneaky oppression. It is
"functionalization" of oppressive practices. By functionalization I refer to
functional usefulness for oppressed people to be involved in their own
oppression. For example, for Uzbeki young person in the Soviet Union to be
aspired to go to college or read books of his/her interest or to become a
doctor meant to learn Russian and to stop using Farsi. A generation of my
Jewish grandparents in the Soviet Union were happy to rush to integrate with
Russian and assimilate among Russian population after the Bolshevik
revolution to forget their "backward" Jewish culture, religion and language.
Functionalization is often done via destroying indigenous practices and
channels of communication and offering alternative, oppressive ones that can
serve the same function that whose that were destroyed. Finally, the
"highest" from functionalization is when oppressed become an oppressor
him/herself through socialization in oppressive practices (not
"internalization", sorry Nate :-). Developing people who are oppressed and
oppressors at the same time is what functionalization can achieve. For
example, many oppressive policies in the Soviet Union were done by natives
in the national republics. These natives were specially trained in the
mainstream institution of Russian-Soviet party apparatus. Interestingly that
during the perestroika and collapse of the Soviet Union these natives
quickly switched to become nationalists.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phillip White [mailto:Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 1:43 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: middle class/intellectual labor
>
>
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >Paul H. Dillon
> writes:
> > However, as we've also seen, intellectual workers tend convert
> >their specific relation to the productive process into the basis for new
> >kinds of domination (bureaucratic domination).
>
>
> yeah! i think Pete F. has pointed this out several times
> - and it's
> what Leigh Star has indicated keeps methods of oppression normalized -
> routinized - from, as Eugene has pointed out, boarding schools for
> native americans, to, as Ogbu has pointed out, normal schools of public
> education, including schools of education within universities.
>
> and i think too of the few prison guards who gave Vaclav
> Havel paper,
> food, bits and pieces of respite from the normalizing routine of prison -
> in fact, Havel's description of the format norms imposed on him by the
> prison director on the structure of letters were remarkably similar to
> what i experienced in high school. yes, forty years ago, but i notice now
> that high school teachers use the formatting capabilities of word
> processing to set the present normings of what a paper should _look_ like.
>
> phillip
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