Paige Sweet Week 11 Venceremos

I find Allen’s statement that he is conducting a “genealogy of the possibilities of the present moment” (10) intriguing. Presumably, Allen is speaking specifically about doing a genealogy of subject formation – what are the historical conditions of possibility that allow for specific subjectivities to arise, paying particular attention to race, gender, and sexuality. If we can consider this a methodological position, it is useful for my research because it allows for a relatively open-ended analysis that is simultaneously historical and contemporary. For my research, this subjectivity-specific genealogical method would allow for syncing macro and micro conditions, as well. What are the cultural and political conditions that allow for subject to form and reform in particular ways, which are contextualized in their own specific circumstances (i.e. race, gender, sexuality)? It seems that analyzing subjectivity is a useful tactic for syncing macro conditions with individual experiences in general, but the genealogical method contributes the necessary axis of history to this type of analysis.

Allen also theorizes subjectivities as oppositional or confrontational to structure from the get-go. He asks, how do black Cubans reinterpret racialized and sexualized interpellations of their identities in the current moment? In this sense, he analyzes the “freedom dreams” of ordinary Cubans via their relationships with transnational “flows” of discourse and people. In essence, his studies of subjectivity assume subversion. From a feminist methodological position, this makes some sense – to theorize identities and subjectivities as partial, disjunctured, always-already political and yet irresolutely resistant. On the other hand, does Allen’s analysis of these subjectivities as innately resistant belie his methodological position of conducting a “genealogy of the present moment,” which seems quite open-ended? Perhaps his assumption of a “natural” subversive core to subjectivity is related to his theorization of erotic self-making as beyond or underneath structure/discourse, which seems problematic from the Foucauldian lens that he employs. If we turn toward complex and contradictory subject formations in our own research, must we assume a “core” to our subjects? If we do not, do we risk writing them as types of “pawns” in the system? Further, does Allen’s analysis of erotic self-making get really beyond this agency/oppression dichotomy, or does it just rewrite agency as innate to oppressed persons?

Michael's Post on ¡Venceremos?

            ¡Venceremos? takes an approach that is very different than what I was expecting. I am used to academic books solely being ethnographies or solely media analysis, but Allen’s book does both and more. At first, it did not work for me, but as I continued to read, I saw the value and importance of his approach to his overall project. He skillfully interweaves history, literature, film, and ethnography to show the complexity, contradictions, and nuances of race, class, sexuality, gender, and politics in Cuba. At first, his discussion of Fernando Ortiz and de Cierta Manera and their connection to the lives of Cubans seemed out of place, but I now see that his use of literature and film was to contextualize, compliment, and enhance his ethnographic data, much like most academics use history. This work was not just about individual Cubans, nor was it just about the state of Cuba or race/gender/sexuality/class in Cuba. ¡Venceremos? is about the interaction of all of these and the contradictions that inevitably arise as a result of their articulations. He was focused on processes more than static individuals and institutions.

            Allen’s methodology is distinctive to his project. As a result, there are many aspects of his methodology that I cannot apply to my own project. Given Cuba’s historical, geographic, and political contexts, it was appropriate and relevant to use literature and film. My project will take place in various places with various contexts. So, while Allen could talk about elements of
“Cuban culture”, I will not be able to talk about “Latina” culture. One aspect of his work that I can apply to my own project is this approach to let your project guide your methodology. My project is an unconventional topic that will require unconventional methodology.

My focus on Latina artists will require me to engage with methods outside of ethnography. In doing so, I hope to have the ability to seamlessly weave together various methods in a single narrative just as Allen did. He did not devote one chapter to literature and film, one to ethnography, one to history, etc. Each chapter is comprised of various methods. In my own work, I will have to engage with art history, art, and possibly other methods. My methodology will have to adapt to my project, rather than limiting my project to fit my methodology.

Another strength of Allen’s approach is the inclusion of himself in the analysis. He, himself, becomes part of the data. His experiences with the spaces, people, and discourses is as much a part of the project as his interlocutors’ experiences. He notes how he played with his own identifications. Sometimes, he would present and be seen as a Cuban. At other times, he would present and be seen as a middle-class academic from the US. The ways others perceived his race, class, sexuality, and gender were connected to larger processes that Cubans had to contend with. For example, he did not understand why nobody talked to him at the twenty-peso party he attended in Cerro. This experience exposed the ways class and nativity play a role in “gay” spaces in Cuba.

In my own project, my interactions with Latina artists will be useful information. Their perceptions of me, whether it be my sexuality, gender, and race/ethnicity, and how they choose to interact with me, will say something about how they see themselves and interact with others. I will not be able to relate with Latina artists like Allen is able to relate to some Black Cubans who do not fit within heteronormative ideas. The chapter, “Friendship as a Mode of Survival,” is probably most relevant to how I will relate with artist. I will likely share very similar interests and passions with them. If friendships develop, how will I understand, navigate, and negotiate these relationships? My relationships will likely be important to my analysis, and Allen shows why this cannot be left out.

Questions:
How do you feel about Allen's use of his own experiences, quotes from those he worked with, and his historical/media/textual analysis? Did he spend too much time on any of them? Would you have liked to see him speak less about some things and more about others?

            

Militz-Frielink Ticktin

Miriam Ticktin's Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France presents clear, articulate arguments about the transnational institutions, discourses, and practices that shape "apolitical" humanitarian causes in France.  She raises profound questions about what constitutes a morally legitimate suffering body, and the biological/affective registers that must be combined to have a life as a politically recognized subject.  Her research shows the unintended effects of the politics of care which are based on a moral imperative.  What types of narratives and performances do san-papiers in France have to invoke to elicit compassion and human services? Sadly, only the ones who present themselves as sick enough, disabled enough, or violated enough can obtain immigration papers.  This creates a completely different problem in the intersection of immigration and humanitarianism.  Ticktin deconstructs the moral imperatives and all the contextualized layers. 

Ticktin's work was extremely helpful to my research because she used a genealogy of discourse as one of her research methods, which I plan to use in my dissertation. She combined this research method with ethnographic research of the experts, state employees, medical professionals, and activists involved in the sans-papier struggle in France.  In this class, Ticktin’s writing has helped me most with the methodology I am trying to create for my dissertation.

In my dissertation, I hope to write a genealogy of discourse on non-religious spiritual epistemology and pedagogy, which can also be coined as contemplative education.  Non-religious spiritual epistemology and praxis as a part of education began with the Stoics in Greece during 3rd century B.C. Since its inception in the West, several philosophers, feminists, poets, and pedagogues all over the world have advocated for it to be a part of a holistic education.  

My dissertation aims to trace this genealogy into it's most present form today.  Cynthia B. Dillard work's on endarkened transnational feminism provided a theoretical framework for me on the spiritual nature of research and teaching. Like other transnational or post-colonial feminists, she does advocate for spirituality to be a part of research, writing, and teaching.  

After I finish the genealogy on non-religious spiritual epistemology and praxis, I plan to conduct a research study on professors in higher education who draw upon spiritual traditions like yoga or meditation, to facilitate an anti-oppressive pedagogy.  My research inquires the definitions and practices of contemporary professors in the field of contemplative studies? How have these practices impacted the student learning in critical theory? How do professors use these practices to heal the self/other relationship?  
I would like to do surveys, interviews, and classrooms observations in higher education classrooms as part of the data collection. 

Originally, I did a philosophical/qualitative study on meditation, yoga, and spiritual definitions in the K-8 classroom for my thesis.  In my thesis I defined spirituality in education as the following:

“…spirituality can be a non-doctrinaire component of education, which can address the emotional aspects of the child.  Spirituality encompasses being in the present moment, losing oneself in tasks and projects without attachment to outcome. Students can experience spiritual aspects of education through nature walks outdoors, periods of silence indoors, and through ungraded creative projects in the classroom.  My assumption is that human beings possess a spiritual dimension that can exist in harmony with the emotional, intellectual, and mental capacities.  I am referring to the word spiritual to mean “the holistic development of mind, body, emotions, and sense of self.”[1] I also refer to the term ‘whole person’ to demonstrate the importance of addressing the multi-dimensional nature of human beings—the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual, the social, and the physical—in the classroom.”[2] 

This time, I hope to ascertain professor’s definitions of spiritual pedagogy, who teach some form of critical theory as part of my dissertation study.  I already have some professors who are willing to be in my sample when the time comes, which is great. Contemplative education is an emerging field and gathering the literature has been an exciting process, but there is much missing from it.  I really feel like transnational feminist authors contributed to the field like Cynthia Dillard, yet go unrecognized in the body of contemplative literature.  Hopefully my dissertation will fill in the gaps between the transnational feminist writing (like Dillard's) and the contemplative studies.

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[1]The David Lynch Foundation, Frequently Asked Questions, http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org/frequently-asked-question.html  2007.

[2] Sarah Militz-Frielink, Spirituality and Education: An Inquiry into Definitions and Practices Taking Shape in Charter Schools (NIU Graduate Thesis Option B, defended April 2009).

Jody Ticktin

Ticktin’s analysis of “regimes of care” is an investigation of the ways the apolitical is implicated in the political.  Focusing on the body as both a discursive and material political object is key to the development of this analysis.  In chapter 4 “In the Name of Violence Against Women,” Ticktin shows how immigrant bodies are made to account for themselves as suffering and oppressed in very particular ways that help to shore up political interests of the French state.  Not only is there a hierarchy of suffering, where sexual and gender violence carry more affective weight with the Refugee Appeals Board, but the designation of suffering as exceptional is based on understandings of what is normal, what is Other, and the French state stands for.

             In my own research on Grindr, attention to the politics of the apolitical is an excellent way of thinking about how to approach the role of technology in the story I’m trying to tell.  In tracing the connections between Grindr and the current politics of queer liberalism, I have been describing how the structure of the app creates opportunities to maintaining private sexual lives and managing public sexual identities.  However, I have not known how to really talk about, or think about, the role of technology in a more abstract way in my project.  Ticktin’s approach helps me do this.  Focusing on the body, and how ostensibly apolitical technology such dating apps acts on and through it, may be especially productive way of thinking through the political implications of privacy and sexuality.  For example, it may be helpful to ask How are gay identified bodies made to account for themselves in order make rights-based claims to the State?

Question for class: How did Ticktin's choice of field sites, and decision to use two very different groups of field sites, contribute to her analysis?  What are the differences in positionality of the researcher in these different sites?

Paige Sweet Week 10

Miriam Ticktin’s (2001) Casualties of Care made me think about genealogy, especially in her chapter about the “New Humanitarianism.” Is genealogy a method or a methodology here, or perhaps both? In addition, how can feminist methodologies be mapped onto or used in conjunction with genealogy as a method? In Ticktin’s use of genealogy, I understand it as a way of analyzing ideology not as a “thing,” but in terms of the historical conditions (“conditions of possibility”) that give rise to that ideology. Early in the semester, we talked about feminist ethnography as being about context, temporality, multiple identities, and silences. It seems then, that Ticktin does an excellent job of combining the feminist methodologies with genealogy, as her analysis pays attention to the political, racialized, and gendered conditions of possibility that give rise to “suffering bodies.” I loved thinking about Ticktin’s methodologies as I was reading, because they gave me feasible suggestions for how to conduct a project like this myself. Part of what she does is to investigate ideologies of humanitarianism for their disguised silences, which seems to me a like a feminist genealogical method. Perhaps the philosophy underlying the genealogy is one of postcolonial feminism and transnationalism, which would make genealogy the method itself.

In my own work, I hope to excavate certain conditions of possibility as they relate to violence against women – namely, the rise of trauma discourses as explanations for battered women’s suffering. Ticktin’s methodological strategies seem instructive for my project – she asks what the landscapes of meaning are that produce certain bodies as deserving of recognition and voice. When I investigate the landscapes of meaning that underlie particular discourses in my own work, I will want to be similarly attentive to national politics and history, to the medicalization of politics more broadly. However, there are two things that recede into the background when I reflect upon Ticktin’s methodology – her own positionality or experiences as an ethnographer and the voices of those who she talks about as being compelled to give testimony to their suffering. Is positionality part of a methodological orientation, or this is a separate research decision? Additionally, what are the implications of theorizing the “silencing” of subjects while not necessarily putting the story in their own words? This leads to my other question: how is methodology implicated in the narrativization of research? In other words, is methodology part of the story-telling that the research does, or is this too, a separate choice?

Michael Week 10: Ticktin

            The aspect of Ticktin’s book that I feel I can apply to my own work is the concept of “armed love”. She says, “The danger is that in pretending to be outside power, ‘unarmed,’ power is wielded without acknowledging it and therefore often without accountability. In this sense, I think of these moral struggles or ‘moralisms’ as forms of ‘armed love,’ often instituting repressive measures in the name of care” (20). Organizations and the state can carry out projects and policies that are reminiscent of Orwellian doublespeak. In claiming to be a source of care, liberation, or reform, many projects can be far more pernicious than their rhetoric would seem on the surface.

            I feel like this applies to my work, because we have seen a growing interest in the use of public, cultural and community art. Art is discussed as a way for communities to express themselves, a way for individuals to take pride in themselves and their communities, opportunities for beautification, and extracurricular activities for youth. On the surface, no one could argue against all these positive aspects of community arts. By taking Ticktin’s methodological approach, we might be able to see how arts can be a form of antipolitics. If we look at “beautification” particularly, we can see how this seemingly positive project can actually be a part of a system of oppression.

For example, the public art in Pilsen is meant to showcase the “culture” of the neighborhood, but it also serves as a tool to attract new residents, further contributing to gentrification. Much of the art in Pilsen is a form of antipolitics, because it attempts to be apolitical by just focusing on aesthetics. Beautification projects attempt to be apolitical, because critical, political artwork would make prospective residents uncomfortable. Instead of having art that connects historical forms of displacement of poor and working-class residents to current gentrification, murals will be some form of decontextualized Mexican cultural aesthetics or murals completed by artists from outside the neighborhood.

            I think it’s interesting to think about the antipolitics of art. Ticktin says, “[A]s we will see, increased policing and criminalization of immigrants takes place in the name of care and compassion, along with a reproduction of gendered and racial inequalities” (21). How can displacement, increase surveillance and criminalization of poor communities of color, and marginalization of Latinos be carried out in the name of art?

Question for class:

Throughout the book, Ticktin is walking many lines. “Recognizing suffering and fetishizing it as a fundamental and only basis of common humanity” (24) “This book is not about getting rid of care” (223). We often have to contend with binarisms that tend to stifle a nuanced critique of our own communities (Naber) or humanitarian/”progressive” causes (Ticktin). What binaries do you have to deal with? What have you taken from Ticktin’s approach in order to better assist your own work?

Indira Neill Hoch

In chapter 6 “Biological Involution? The Production of Diseased Citizens,” Ticktin (2011) interrogates “the production of the disabled subject in France, at the intersection of the global political economy and universal regimes of care—a counterintuitive subject that is more mobile when disabled, injured or diseased than when ‘healthy’” (p. 192). This sick subject must be visible and apolitical in its display, and must travel through systems that treat the disadvantaged body as separate from the macropolitical conditions that produced and continues its sickness, including the aid network to which that diseased body comes to belong. In digital spaces there are multiple opportunities to performed one’s embodied-ness or perform bodies that may differ from the one irl. However, even in avatar spaces, where the game player has the option of creating a differently sexed, differently gendered, differently raced body, behaviors and performances lead to speculation about who is controlling the virtual body and what secrets it holds.

Pearce (Pearce & Artemesia, 2009) recounts in her ethnographic notes on existing among users of There.com multiple instances of men behind female avatars “coming out” as being not their avatar. One participant identified as questioning their gender, another was playing female at his girlfriend’s insistence to prevent flirting (and she later joined as a male avatar), a third was putting into practice a rule he set for his daughter to not reveal any true information about themselves online. The reasons for gender swapping were diverse, and generally seen as innocuous. There was little discouragement from members of the group and overwhelmingly the response was to play as whatever gender they wanted to, using any voice they felt comfortable with. Ticktin writes about social, political, and biological conditions that intersect under the illness clause (p. 214). Different sans-papiers experienced their situation as falling under different conditions. In the gender-swapped gamers, taking on a female avatar reflected a host of different concerns.

A more political, thornier issue is discussed in Nakamura’s (2009) assessment of “Chinese gold farmers” in World of Warcraft (WoW). (Here I feel a little like I’m bringing up the dirty laundry of gaming culture, when everyone has already seen it…). Since the introduction of commercial multiplayer games such as WoW there has been the illegitimate work of power-leveling and gold farming. Labor networks produce and sell both avatars ready for engaging in end-game activities (it takes 80+ of hours of play time to produce an avatar ready for end-game dungeons and raiding) and gold that can be exchanged for in-game items. These labor networks have been investigated in both popular and academic literature and cast a laboring (Chinese) body in a small sweltering room playing the game for 20 hours a day in order to produce avatars ready for sale and piles of gold to be sold for real-world currency (RMT or “real money trade). However, these bodies breaking the terms and conditions of the commercial game (players are doling out $20 a month to play) are rendered visible again and again, and frequently radicalized. Instead of performing illness in order to obtain papers, they must perform specific in-game actions in order to level characters and accumulate gold. Highly repetitive behaviors attached to random-sounding avatar names are accused of being (Chinese) gold farmers. Other gamers may converge on the character and in some games may have the opportunity to kill the avatar or otherwise disrupt their ability to do their work. Power levelers may be more difficult to detect as their robotic actions, efficient, perfected, are highly valued traits in end-game players who want to move through content quickly in the hopes of acquiring better loot. In either case, however, the behaviors on screen mark gold farming and power leveling avatars as attached to radicalized, laboring bodies. The laboring body in China is seen as disruptive to the playing body in the West, South Korea, or Japan. (This is why the body comes to be marked as specifically Chinese, and not “Asian.”)

The other side to this is the playing body who has purchased the power leveled character. While the gold farmers are more clearly spotted in the labor stage, power leveling is more apparent in play. An avatar body is not performing to the skill level associated with the equipment it is wearing. For example, I was in a dungeon last week with 3 other players. None of us had played together before and were randomly matched together by the game. After dying on the final boss twice, one player accused another of having bought his/her character (playing with the produce of power leveling labor). The reasoning for this was that the avatar was wearing good gear, but his/her damage output was low. He/she wasn’t “playing right.” I had noticed this as well, but it can happen for a variety of reasons, kids playing with their parent’s avatars, a friend handing the controls over to another friend who wants to try out the game, etc. But the accusation here was that the character had been bought and this illegitimacy was rendered through the player’s digital, and by extension, physical body. The behaviors on screen were “wrong,” which meant the hands controlling the avatar were “wrong,” this wrongness meant that the avatar should be expelled from the dungeon.

All of these discussions ignore the global labor system that creates the demand for power leveled avatars and gold-on-demand. Scholars in video game studies absolutely note the labor conditions that make farming an attractive job in certain economies. They have also spoken to those who purchase avatars. This work is being done, but perhaps not quite from a perspective that considers how such labor markets intersect with issues outside of economics and labor. Nakamura’s contribution includes adding race to the discussion, but there is certainly more work that can be done.

One avenue is similar to one Ticktin raises but does not pursue as it would take her slightly off course, the glorification of similar behaviors in other contexts. Sports and sadomasochism are allowed, but contracting AIDS deliberately is not. Like the (Chinese) gold farmer, the (Korean) competitive gamer exhibits precise control, quick movements and efficiency. For North American champions, saying that they have been known to “beat Korean champions” is a mark of exceptional skill. The (Korean) competitive gamer is engaging in the game space for financial gain just as the (Chinese) gold farmer likewise makes a living from activity in the game space. One thing I would like to touch on in class is alternative interpretations of actions that appear similar (the hunger strike vs anorexia for example) and how these bodies are cast as different, and to what ends?

Nakamura, L. (2009). Don't hate the player, hate the game: The racialization of labor in World of Warcraft. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 26(2), 128-144.

Pearce, C. & Artemesia (2009). Communities of play: Emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.