Michael Week 9

            I gained several methodological insights this week regarding relationality, voice, and representation. In Ella Shohat’s (2001) discussion of the necessity and usefulness of multicultural feminism, she emphasizes the importance of viewing community affiliations and cultural practices as relationally built. This is important, because it provides a framework to view genders, sexualities, races, classes, nations, etc. not as static, bounded, distinct categories. Instead, relationality blurs the lines between these categories. Not only do I view races, genders, sexualities, etc. as relationally built within (such as blackness is exists in relation to whiteness/other races or women exist in relation to men), but so-called categories are built in relation to each other. The construction of blackness is intimately tied to constructions of sexuality, gender, class, and nation. Additionally, relationality allows us to break out of binaries that many of the scholars this week reject. Blackness is not only built in relation to whiteness, but also latinoness, asianness, arabness, etc. I find this extremely helpful for my own work, because I have a much clearer idea of how I will approach a discussion of what it means to be a Latina artist. These are not static identities and labels but in constant formation depending on many other community affiliations. Shohat (2001) adds that ideas about the local and the global are also relationally built, but we also have to move beyond the binary of local/good and global/bad. Multicultural feminism is polycentric and embraces its contradictions and tensions. Relationality is a strong foundation for this.

            In the Shigematsu et al. (2008) and Naber (2012) pieces, issues of representation and voice struck me. “Women-of-color veterans on war, militarism, and feminism” takes a conversational approach to discussing the connections between militarism, feminism, imperialism, and racism. In chapter 4 of Naber’s (2012) book, six of her interlocutor’s life stories were told using the first-person tense. In book pieces, the voice of those who shared their perspectives and experiences were put to the forefront instead of the “authors”. Shigematsu et al.’s (2008) chapter was not only informative but nice to read. The chapter felt as if I was sitting in the room with these women and listening to them say, in their own words, what they had experienced and interpreted. The “participants” were shown to be theorists in their own ways. Naber’s (2012) use of the first-person to tell the life stories of six women again allowed the “subjects” to be theorists and be more intimate with the reader. Instead of being told about some people, I felt like those people were sharing something with me as a reader. I often struggle with how to use voice in my writing. We are often told not to lose our voice in our writing or not to rely too much on the participant’s voice. This means less quotations and more analysis. These pieces showed me that it is possible and even desirable in some cases to take a backseat to the voices of those I am working with. Naber’s (2012) work was not a verbatim text of her interviews. Her contribution was putting these women’s stories in conversation and situating them while not speaking for them. I thought this was wonderful.

Class Questions:

What kind of compromises will we have to make in our dissertations regarding voice that were not as necessary for the pieces we read?

How do you think you will balance the demands of traditional approaches to categories, community affiliations, voice, and representation with what we have discussed in this class?