Institutional privilege describes how the structures privilege a homogenous
group/or homogenous practices, in a heterogenous world.
I'm peering through stained glass, actually. A little Foucault, a little
Freud, a little Dorothy Smith, (well, a lot of Dorothy, actually), critical
feminism...
sociocultural theoris of participation and identification...
>Not that I don't agree, but to paraphrase Gregory Bateson,
>things are the way they are not by accident. Power structures that
>priviledge certain types of people/behaviors have functioned for many,
>many, many years.
I wouldn't say institutions have functioned, but rather they have
dysfunctioned for may many many years.
... the problem is that these power structures/power relations always
favours the same kinds of people: and this does not mean only by
outer-identity labels (skin, genitals, class)
but by practice, i.e., that kinds of practices are favoured: for example,
I've sadly met my share of
feminist scholars who _act_ as thought they hate women.
I can only wonder how much of this comes from participating with texts and
discourses and theories and professional practices which originate in
activities historically & ideologically designed to exclude women from
practice in areas of knowledge, education, writing, professionalism,and so
on.
Tenure, professional security, in today's world, are privileges granted to
those who succeed
in conforming their radical nerdiness into conservative scholarship.
>I am interested in hearing an argument/perspective that
>defines priviledge as not as good as something else. And what that
>something else might smell like.
institutional privilege is very particular, obviously. What I mean is that
privilege in the contexts of the educational institutions is a specific
practice of favouring those who succeed in maintaining the tower's
position, which in turn guarantees ongoing privileges to specific kinds of
persons, practices, knowledges, -
Privilege, as a special advantage, in institutional contexts, effectively
describes
institutional corruption. What would smell better? Teen spirit. (Smells
like teen spirit, ha ha) -
but I do mean youth, anarchy, radical praxis, a rumble in the ivory tower, ...
and then I recall my favourite Woody Allen line, "I hate change: Change is
death."
mm. a little freud.
diane