Re: [-empyre-] Re: empyre Digest, Vol 5, Issue 5

[Kate Southworth <katesouthworth@gloriousninth.com>]

I couldn¹t agree more with Ryan's proposal that "there are ways of
being/acting/communication that are opposed to forms of oppression, but
aren't defined by them".

I would like to add that firstly, I think that forms of oppression need to
be recognised and articulated.  I think this passage from a recent lecture
by Jane Flax at AHRB CentreCATH at the University of Leeds is relevant here.

?Contesting a tacit or unconscious meaning system is difficult. Sometimes
the inevitable contradictions and gaps within any system provide leverage or
sites for resistance. Often, however, what is required are ways to delimit
the system, so that it appears as a perspective rather than inexorable
truth. However, only certain practices of subjectivity are likely to
engender a critical skepticism in regard to normalizing processes. Given the
power of normalization and the inaccessibility of unconscious material, such
practices will most likely require intersubjective interactions through
which self-critical disciplines are acquired¹.

Full article available at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/events/2004/1117/03.html


Secondly, I think that the processes of transgressing those oppressive
boundaries should not (to borrow a phrase from Bracha Ettinger) ?submit or
fold into¹ the oppressive forms themselves.

Challenging and unorthodox though it is, I find articulated within Bracha's
work, and indeed within the work of Griselda Pollock (whose theoretical
concerns are very closely related to Bracha's) the potential for just such a
form of ethical border crossing.


Information on research, publications etc. written by/about Bracha Ettinger:
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Lichtenberg.html
http://www.metramorphosis.org.uk/

Information on research, publications etc. written by Griselda Pollock:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/people/gp/

bw
Kate


4/5/05 8:35ryan griffisgrifray@yahoo.com

> i very much relate to Kate's desire to activate "transgressions" as a
> way of moving beyond borders. but i wonder about the de facto
> acceptance of the border that is to be transgressed. i don't mean to
> suggest a utopian notion of "thinking our way out of the problem," but
> maybe there are ways of being/acting/communicating that are opposed to
> forms of oppression, but aren't defined by them.
> for example, while the EFF, ACLU and other civil rights groups - not to
> mention other direct action coalitions - are extremely important (can't
> emphasize this enough) in the US, i'm also really interested in
> projects that seem to have little value for capital P politics (a
> system of oppositions and allegiances rooted in ideology), but are
> political propositions nonetheless.
> http://mydailyconstitution.org/
> some of my thoughts here stem from critics of spatial politics, like
> Rosalyn Deutsch, who point at the patriarchal position of most
> criticism of the diminishing "public sphere" and its tendency to suffer
> from agoraphobia and amnesia - i.e. neglecting the historic differences
> that were forcefully excluded from those public spaces many critics see
> as currently under attack. Jackie Stevens' "Reproducing the State" is
> another interesting approach to considering borders and other
> directions.
> http://jacquelinestevens.org/
> i'm interested in the implications of this for the way the "public
> resource" of the internet is being shaped, especially with notions of
> the "commons" and other historic spatial metaphors being used as
> arguments.
> hoping this makes sense,
> ryan
> 
>>> I wanted to use the term 'transgressions' in connection with 'border
>>> crossing' for this month's discussion because for me, carried within
>>> the
>>> concept of 'transgression' as a human activity, is the idea not just
>>> of
>>> questioning and challenging boundaries - laws, norms, behaviours,
>>> values,
>>> categories, systems, identities - but of actually finding ways of
>>> moving
>>> beyond them. 
>>> 
> 
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