Looking at Ourselves: Multiculturalism, Conflict & Belonging

Edited by

Katherine Wilson

Looking at Ourselves: Multiculturalism, Conflict & Belonging

At the Interface

Series Editors Dr Robert Fisher Dr Nancy Billias

Advisory Board Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris Mira Crouch Professor John Parry Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

An At the Interface research and publications project. http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/ The Diversity and Recognition Hub ‘Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging’

Looking at Ourselves: Multiculturalism, Conflict & Belonging Edited by

Katherine Wilson

Inter-Disciplinary Press Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2010 http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global network for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary publishing.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-84888-016-0 First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2010. First Edition.

Table of Contents Looking At Ourselves: An Introduction Katherine Wilson SECTION I

Multiculturalism and Its Discontents Representation Strategies of Cultural Diversity in Three European Capitals of Culture Tuuli Lähdesmäki

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Reification in the Census? Multiculturalist Policies and Identity Markers in 36 Democracies Caroline Duvieusart-Déry

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Friday Re-educated: Orientalising the Eastern European Other in Rose Tremain’s The Road Home Józef Jaskulski

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Parochialism - Revitalisation - Development: How to Build the Economic and Cultural Environment by Changing the Local Space Dariusz Waldzinski and Eliza Chodkowska SECTION II

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Rethinking Conflict Adding Culture: Multicultural Problem Solving in Water Conflicts Boyd W. Fuller

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Dirt: A Social Mirror Meghna Haldar

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The Invention of Gesture in the Lack of Words Tina Rahimy

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Imitating Art or Life: The Tragic Hero’s Emergence on France’s Postcolonial Stage Stephanie-Alice Baker Analysing Generalised Trust in Heterogeneous Communities using Social Representations Olimpia Mosteanu

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Addressing the Legacy of Violence within the Youth Agenda in Northern Ireland: Practical Strategies and Methods of Working with Young People within a Society Coming to Terms with the Past and the Future Barry Fennell and Laura Stewart SECTION III

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The Politics of Belonging Being an African: Some Queer Remarks from the Margins Paul Prinsloo Recognition as Negotiation Giorgio Bertolotti The Dominican Second Generation: Creation of a Subaltern Identity Julia Meszaros Fragmented Lives, Fragmented Identities: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Out-and In-Marriage on the Identities of Filipinos in the United Kingdom Ramona Buhain Bacon An Identity Matrixing Model for Transculturality Michael Kearney and Setsuko Adachi Inside the Caves of Moon Palace: Being the Self Becoming the Other Joana Lima Self: Hand Me Down Clothes Charlene April Clempson Divide, Diverge and Conquer within Context: An Investigation into the Evolution and Synthesis of Female Fashion and Social Representation in the Arabian Gulf Stephanie Ryan Cate and Annemarie Profanter The Space of Salsa: Theory and Implications of a Global Dance Phenomenon Katherine Wilson

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Looking at Ourselves: An Introduction Katherine Wilson If there is a silver lining, we certainly found it. Despite an amazing response from scholars across the world, due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, a portion of the delegates at the 3rd Global Conference on Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging had to regretfully withdraw their participation at the conference. This unfortunate event, however, became the catalyst for the remaining scholars to reorganise into a plenary meeting, making the occasion both intimate and intense. The congress, held from Friday, 25 September to Monday, 28 September 2009 at Mansfield College, Oxford, brought together delegates from 19 countries representing numerous academic disciplines. As our papers reflected our various practices of writing within our disciplines, from sociology and literary studies to film documentary and social work, we found the need to learn how to speak to each other again. Thus, the ‘close quarters’ of this year’s conference succeeded in enhancing our consciousness of interdisciplinarity. During the four days we were together, we seemed to enact the three themes which had brought us together: we experimented with our own multicultural space (if academic disciplines can be thought of as cultures); experienced conflict in reconciling the words we used with the expertise of others, and ultimately, found that our diligence in striving for mutual understanding had fostered a sense of belonging amongst us. Our experience also directly correlated with the overall rationale of the At the Interface project, under which all Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging conferences fall. At the Interface research project aims at expressing the idea that ‘learning and reflection is best conducted through an interactive process which engages in mutual and reciprocal dialogue’. In this way, the project endeavours to ‘take people beyond the horizons of what they usually encounter’. The title of this eBook, Multiculturalism in the Mirror, is meant to literally reflect this pushing of boundaries that developed as a result of the close proximity to our topic felt between delegates during the course of the conference. This eBook, which offers a selection of the various essays presented at this congress, is an attempt to capture the spirit of our discussion. The Multiculturalism in the Mirror e-Book is organised in three sections corresponding to our main themes: ‘Multiculturalism and Its Discontents’, ‘Rethinking Conflict’, and ‘The Politics of Belonging’. While the essays in the three sections comprising this e-Book contain vastly over lapping themes, I have kept this structure in order to highlight related questions. This organisation also is meant to put certain essays in dialogue with each other.

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______________________________________________________________ The first section, entitled ‘Multiculturalism and Its Discontents’, makes reference to the history of intense debate regarding both the naming and practice of ‘multiculturalism’. During our conference’s final meeting, one of the delegates remarked, ‘so multiculturalism is a failed concept? It actually doesn’t work?’ that led to a discussion about whether the conference should change its name. We wondered, would expunging ‘multiculturalism’ from ‘Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging’ be a way of disposing of the bathwater while keeping the baby? Ultimately, we agreed that the concept, even when seen as a failure, is still alive and kicking, and upheld as official policy in many countries of the world. Thus, the first section of the eBook takes up the larger discussion of multiculturalism, often as it is expressed through policy. Tuuli Lähdesmäki opens the volume with an examination of multicultural strategies, specifically in the representation of minorities, used by the European Union in choosing cities for their European Capital of Culture programme. Caroline DuvieusartDéry follows with an extensive statistical study of the multiculturalist policies in 36 democratic nations. By comparing the manner in which states use the census to manage diversity, she links the strength of a nation’s multiculturalist policies with the tendency to calculate populations based on ethnocultural categories of difference. Józef Jaskulski turns our attention to literary representations of diversity, offering a critical analysis of Rose Tremain’s The Road Home. Jaskulski’s ‘unorthodox reading’ provides a warning against the orientalising and patronising tendencies involved in the shaping of multicultural contexts. Completing this section, Dariusz Waldzinski and Eliza Chodkowska discuss the pressures of globalisation on local governments in Poland’s Warmian-Masurian region as they utilise various techniques to revitalise smaller towns. The second section of the eBook, Rethinking Conflict, opens up an honest and pragmatic discussion of various kinds of conflict, complicating simplistic formulations of what ‘resolution’ may entail. For instance, the first essay, Boyd Fuller’s ‘Adding Culture’, is an empirical analysis of water management deliberations in the US and Thailand. In this article, Boyd argues that, instead of striving for mutual understanding, recognising ‘notunderstanding’ among disparate groups may be a more effective route to communication and problem solving. The following essay by Meghna Haldar is a textual analysis of her documentary Dirt: A Social Mirror that was screened at the conference. Tracing the continuum between conceptions of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’, Haldar illuminates the locates the foundations of conflict around the world in the delineation of ‘clean self’ from ‘dirty other’. Tina Rahimy’s essay explores Parisa Yousef Doust’s film, Nahid=Venus. Inspired by a Deluezian notion of cinema, Rahimy looks at the aesthetic features of artistic work by refugees in cinema and visual media. Like Haldar, she

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______________________________________________________________ elaborates on the political significance of cinema to express internal conflict that arises in the movement of individuals between cultures. Bringing the conversation into the socio-political arena, Stephanie Alice Baker presents a reading of France’s Zinédine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup misdemeanour in describing how historical events evolve into social myths. Her article shows how, in France, this social myth was enacted through the frame of race, ethnic and religious discourses. The next article by Olimpia Mosteanu complements the discussion of conflict in this section by focusing on the functioning of generalised trust in different social interactions. Her work adapts commonly held assertions in ‘rational choice theory’ regarding trust as a vital social component in order to describe how trust works in heterogeneous environments. Wrapping up this section, Northern Ireland social workers, Barry Fennell and Laura Stewart, balance theoretical arguments regarding conflict with first-hand experience. Their essay describes the various youth programmes in which they have been involved that seek to address the urgent needs of young people in ‘postconflict societies’. ‘The Politics of Belonging’, the final and largest section of this eBook, brings together essays that theorise the formation of identity in a diverse world. The section opens with Paul Prinsloo’s ‘Being an African: Some Queer Remarks from the Margins’. Prinsloo, an Afrikaner, gave a powerful performance during his paper presentation at the conference. This involved changing into a shirt showing the continent of Africa and displaying a list of personal identity labels, exposing the complexity of identity formation and representation. His essay corresponds to this performance in critically engaging his unique positionality in South Africa’s official Africanisation process. Giorgio Bertolotti follows with an in-depth study of the various criticisms that have arisen around the politics of recognition. While acknowledging the strength of these objections, Bertolotti’s essay suggests that the Hegelian theory of recognition may provide a way through the debate, preserving valuable understandings of recognition. Next, Julia Meszaros contributes a sociological study on the often-ambiguous racial experiences of Dominican immigrants to the US. She discusses how recognition of these immigrants by Americans defies simple categorisation due to the fact that many immigrants trace their lineage to African sources yet speak Spanish. Similar to Meszaros, Bacon offers an empirical study of the lives of 30 Filipinos living in England. Through a series of interviews, this essay shows the intricate connections involved in identification as it is tied to settlement, either by marriage or employment. In ‘An Identity Matrixing Model for Transculturality’, Michael Kearney and Setsuko Adachi propose a new theoretical model of identity formation based on Lacan’s notion of the Symbolic Order. Kearney and

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______________________________________________________________ Adachi introduce us to their concepts of ‘Vertical Matrixing’ and ‘Horizontal Matrixing’ in understanding how identities are formulated across time and space. Moving into literary criticism, Joana Lima explores a kind of inverse of identity formation, analysing the ‘identity-erasing’ process in Paul Auster’s novel Moon Palace (1989) through the lives of the characters, Marco Stanley Fogg and Thomas Effing. In these two characters, Lima notes the process of reinvention of the Self and Other. The next essay, Clempson’s ‘Self: Hand Me Down Clothes’, utilises a ‘practice-based’ methodology, inviting readers to consider what she calls her multicultural wardrobe-a series of pieces passed down from relatives that hold embedded culture memories. Through this aesthetic of outward appearance, Clempson theorises the construction of her Caribbean and British existence. Complementing Clempson’s study of clothing and identity, the article, ‘Divide, Diverge and Conquer within Context’ by Annemarie Profanter and Stephanie Ryan Cate takes up to often misunderstood topic of female Islamic clothing, particularly as it manifests at various locations in the Arabian Gulf. Using a comparative approach, Profanter and Cate identify the complex web of societal influences and the rapidly changing norms surrounding Islamic female fashion. This last section and the e-Book is closed by an essay I wrote involving my experiences moving between cultures as an international, Latin dance performer and instructor. I seek to complicate binary notions of local and global in describing the way that Salsa music and dance is incorporated and transformed in diverse societies around the globe. In the end, it is my hope that readers will find the discussions throughout this e-Book engaging. I would like to offer my sincerest thank you to Alejandro Cervantes-Carson, Rob Fisher, and Nancy Billias for their hard work and dedication in putting the conference together, and their continued support and patience throughout the editing process. I would also like to thank all the delegates who participated in making the conference such an inspiring experience.

SECTION I Multiculturalism and Its Discontents

Representation Strategies of Cultural Diversity in Three European Capitals of Culture Tuuli Lähdesmäki Abstract Since 1985, the European Union has nominated cities as European Capitals of Culture in order to highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures and the features they share. The discourse of cultural diversity plays a fundamental role in the EU´s decisions, instructions and evaluation criteria of the programme. Thus, the discourse is adhered to in the language and visualisations of the cities which are applying for and obtaining the title. The driving question in the article is: How is the concept of cultural diversity understood and represented in the application and promotion material of three forthcoming European Capitals of Culture - Pécs (2010), Tallinn (2011) and Turku (2011)? The three cities in question utilise various strategies in emphasising and representing their cultural diversity. All of the cities stress their location as a historical meeting place of different ethnicities and nationalities. Additionally, the cities stress their architecture as an expression of multicultural layers of the cities. Moreover, cultural diversity is related to the global imagery of popular culture, street culture and contemporary art. Cities can also stress the canon of Western art history as a base for culturally diverse Europeanness. One essential strategy is to represent different minorities and their visual culture as signs of cultural diversity. Key Words: Art, cultural diversity, discourse, European Capitals of Culture, multiculturalism, representation. ***** 1.

Celebrating Cultures in Europe Since 1985, the European Union has nominated cities as European Cities of Culture in order to ‘highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures and the features they share, as well as to promote greater mutual acquaintance between European citizens’1. Since 1999, the chosen cities have been called European Capitals of Culture. The European Capital of Culture programme enables the cities to present and promote the originality and speciality of various cultural collectivises. Additionally, it enables the cities to propose how the different cultures meet, flourish side-by-side, and influence each other. The latter possibility can be explored and discussed with the concept of cultural diversity. The programme’s emphasis on

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______________________________________________________________ highlighting the richness and diversity of European cultures relies on a discourse in which the concept of cultural diversity has an essential role. This discourse is fostered in the EU´s decisions, instructions and evaluation criteria of the European Capitals of Culture programme. Thus, the discourse is also followed in the language, visualisations and practices of the cities applying for and obtaining the title. The empirical focus of the article is on three cities that were chosen as European Capitals of Culture: Pécs in Hungary (2010), and Tallinn in Estonia and Turku in Finland (2011). The driving question in my article is: How is the concept of cultural diversity understood and represented in various official materials of the three forthcoming European Capitals of Culture. I will answer this question by analysing the application books, plans, promotion, advertising and information material and programmes of the cities. The analysis of the material requires consideration of genre: the application books in addition to other advertising and promotion material tend to market the city in a positive and distinguishable way, present visions and draw outlines on the forthcoming event. Nevertheless, or because of the nature of the genre, the books and promotion material bring out the ideas, ideals and cultural discourses, which are being (or are aimed to be) materialised and visualised in practice during the particular European Capital of Culture year. The analysis of the material is accomplished through a critical discourse analysis, which embodies the analysis of literary texts and visual imagery. 2.

Cultural Diversity as a Discourse Cultural diversity can be understood as a hyponym, a word that combines several ways of discussing, defining and representing its focus. These discussions, definitions and representations have been conceptualised for example with the concepts of multiculturalism, interculturalism, crossculturalism, transculturalism, cultural dialogue, cultural pluralism and cultural mosaic. The definitions of these concepts criss-cross in academic and everyday discussions. Particularly in a non-academic context, the different concepts have often been used as synonyms, their individual usages difficult to distinguish from one another. One of the often referred concepts in the everyday discussions and media texts is multiculturalism. It is also the most often used concept in my research material for discussing and representing cultural diversity. The concept of multiculturalism has been defined in several ways in academic literature. Additionally, it has strong political and ideological content and is frequently used in political discussions and decision-making processes. Moreover, the concept has contradictory meanings, and the phenomena attached to it have raised considerable confrontation. In general, the concept refers to a variety of strategies for dealing with the cultural

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______________________________________________________________ diversity and social heterogeneity of modern societies, as Stuart Hall proposes2. Hall has approached multiculturalism as a plural concept, which acquires various presuppositions and aims at different contexts and discourses3. Besides the Hall’s broad definition, the concept of multiculturalism is often understood as a cultural condition in which several distinguished cultural collectivises exist side-by-side, but not as merged to each other. In this article, I will use the concept of cultural diversity outlining it as broadly as Hall outlines the concept of multiculturalism. The concept of cultural diversity describes the best the variety and heterogeneity of culture. Cultural diversity is also much more flexible as an academic concept. Thus, studying only to the concept of multiculturalism would demarcate some essential discussions, rhetoric, and phenomena out the focus of the article. The discussions on cultural diversity have spread over several areas of social life in contemporary societies. Further, they have strongly influenced the disciplines of art and aesthetics. However, in the fields of art and aesthetics, these discussions already have a long tradition. Bhikhu Parekh has outlined different perspectives to explain varieties of cultures within a society. He observes how Herder, Schiller and other romantic liberals advanced an aesthetic case for cultural diversity, arguing that diversity creates a rich, varied, as well as aesthetically pleasing and stimulating world4. This kind of perspective often characterises the discussions on cultural diversity in the fields of art and aesthetics. In addition to the practises of advancing an aesthetic case for cultural diversity in the past, the issue of cultural diversity has recently arisen in discussions of contemporary art that emphasise post-modern ideas. As a cultural discourse, postmodernism has been understood both as a symptom and a mental image of change, in which cultures are seen through the ideas of diversity, variability, richness of popular and local discourses, in addition to practices and codes which resist systematics5. Since the concept of cultural diversity has multiple and contradictory contents it seems reasonable to approach the concept as a discourse. This discourse of cultural diversity embodies a variety of discussions and meaning-making processes which stress heterogeneous cultural interaction. The discourse forms its object every time the discourse is used and produces positions between the users of the discourse and those who are being discussed and represented in the discourse. 3.

Strategies of Cultural Diversity in the Three Forthcoming European Capitals of Culture The discourse of cultural diversity embodies a variety of discussions and meaning-making processes which stress heterogeneous cultural interaction. Its main ideas can be represented in several ways. In this chapter, I will outline four different strategies of producing the discourse of cultural

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______________________________________________________________ diversity in the three European Capitals of Culture. These strategies are being used and repeated in the application books in addition to the promotion and advertising material of Pécs, Tallinn and Turku. Some of the cities place more emphasis on certain strategies in the production of discourse. However, all the outlined strategies exist and overlap in some way in the material of all cities. I refer to the different ways of producing the discourse as strategies, which stress the applications’ political and ideological content. However, the production may be intentional or unintentional, or even the result of conscious or unconscious practice. Non-intention or unconscious character does not reduce the ideological or political power of the discourse. 3.1.

Multicultural Layers of History In the all of the cities, the most common strategy in the production of the discourse of cultural diversity is to stress location of the city as a historical meeting place of different ethnicities, nationalities and religious communities. Additionally, in all the application books multicultural characteristics of the cities are verbalised with the metaphor of the city as a gateway. With this metaphor the cities are described as locations, through which people have shifted or still transit from one cultural area to another. The metaphor implies active movement and transition, in which not only people are moving, but also their culture. This kind of perspective of cultural variety and of being both an active present-day and historical meeting point for people with varying backgrounds is a strategy for producing the place as a significant European city. Rather than just being a peripheric, monocultural locality, the city is represented as having connections to other (often more well-known) European nationalities and cultural identities. In the Turku book it is stated that ‘Turku has for centuries been a European meeting point where the Finnish, Russian, Swedish, Scandinavian, Baltic and German cultures coexist’6. Similarly, the book of Pécs describes: ‘Pécs is a multicultural city. In the past it developed cultural layers of Latin, Turkish, German, Croatian and Hungarian origin. Today it is the most important centre of German, Croatian and Romany culture in Hungary’7. The Tallinn book depicts how by ‘[w]alking the streets and lanes, it is evident that the buildings of Tallinn are as diverse and multicultural as its people. Over the centuries, artisans and architects from Germany, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and Italy have worked with Estonians to create the city we see today’8. These views follow the ideals of EU cultural policy, percolated to the decision on European Capitals of Culture, by stressing ideas of cultural dialogue, interaction and, even in some sense, unification of European nations. Stressing the historical layers of (positive) multicultural interaction in the past centuries obscures power mechanisms that control present day cultural diversity. The culturally diverse past is represented in books and promotion material as a creative, stimulating and unproblematic condition.

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______________________________________________________________ Past as well as current conflicts and confrontation related to cultural diversity are turned into a peaceful dialogue, which fades away the hierarchies of dominance and suppression related to confrontations, conflicts or ‘dialogue’. When urban architecture is stressed as an expression of the multicultural layers of the cities, cultural diversity is being aestheticised as visual diversity. The same mechanism is used when cultural diversity is being celebrated in particular festivals, temporary bazaars or cultural events focused on presenting cultures of particular groups or communities. Cultural diversity turns into experiences of the audience in the folk dance festivals or in the tasting of minority cultures’ cuisines. Aestheticising or stressing the experiential character of cultural diversity easily obscures the social confrontation and power mechanisms of the discourse. Stressing peaceful dialogue of cultures, turns attention away from negative issues, such as racism, social inequality and differences in education or standard of living between different cultural collectivities, which are often related to the reality of cultural diversity in societies. Highlighting the positive aspects of cultural diversity is one solution in attempts to eliminate these negative issues. In addition, it seems to be an easy solution in attempts to solve the problems related to cultural diversity. However, it is at the same time profoundly superficial solution, which does not deconstruct the social foundations of these problems. 3.2.

Global Street Culture and Contemporary Art In all case cities, the application books and promotion material utilises more or less the global imagery of popular culture, youth culture, street culture and contemporary art. In the application books and promotion material of the three cities, global cultural phenomena are presented for example in the imageries of skateboarding, street dance, parcour, pop and rock concerts, street performances as well as spending time in street cafés and other urban areas. Cultural variety is understood in the global frame, where globalised cultural phenomena form a common starting point for cultural dialogue and communication. Stressing globalised cultural phenomena is a strategy for producing the discourse of cultural diversity that does not seek the origins or authenticity of cultural products, but underlines the production of urbanness, urban culture and creativity in addition to experiences within the culturally mixed urban community of the city. This kind of the global condition of culture is seen in this discourse as a positive state, which encourages cultural participation and enables creativity, which utilises diversity of cultural influences. This kind of emphasis in the discourse of cultural diversity stresses a ‘melting pot’ type of communality, which is seen as being formed by people coming from a variety of ethnic, national, cultural and sub-cultural backgrounds.

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______________________________________________________________ A communality of the inhabitants can also be fostered without referring to any particular ethnicity, nationality or cultural group. Communality can be seen to be formed through people being and living together in addition to a joint consumption and production of the city’s cultural variety. Particularly, the global youth and street cultures can be seen in terms of participation and creation of imaginative and innovative art and cultural products. The strategy of stressing communality, formed through being and living together, is somewhat ideological and political ─ it avoids emphasising any particular group of people based on more or less static characteristics. 3.3. International Canon of High Art The international canon of art, and particularly its Eurocentric interpretation, is produced in the application books and promotion material of the cities as a consequence of intense cultural and artistic exchange in addition to influences between European nations, styles, art schools and artists. Exhibiting the great masters relates the city to the international discourse of art, which is being placed above the particularist discussions. The Western canon of art embodies the history of the so-called masterpieces made by the greatest artists of all time. These well-known and internationally famous and appreciated artists represent different nationalities as well as regional and cultural groups, though many of them have been profoundly cosmopolitan during their lifetime. Because the canon of art has an international dimension, it can be taken as a point of departure for the production of the discourse of cultural diversity. Relying on the western canon of art means that art and cultural phenomena are often seen in a profoundly official sense and in the frames of high culture. Emphasis on the canon underlines the meaning and power position of several art and cultural institutions, such as museums, cultural centres and heritage sites, and high art and impressive architecture in them. Moreover, canon and institutions often represent the majority while minorities and minority cultures are seen as ‘others’. Furthermore, the discourse of cultural diversity is often being produced from the power position of some majority group or culture. This kind of power structure produces a composition, whereby art and culture are easily seen as phenomena, which are created in the institutions and not produced by common people in their everyday life. In that sense, art and culture are seen as phenomena, which have to be brought to the regions (i.e. suburbs inhabited by immigrants and ethnic minorities) which have no art and culture of their own. As it is written in the Tallinn application: ‘People of culture and cultural institutions in Tallinn have to make it their mission to bring culture to the inhabitants of remote regions’9. The same idea is expressed in the book of Turku as follows: ‘Creating and experiencing culture is encouraged by

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______________________________________________________________ taking art and culture to the people - from the centre of the city to the suburbs, from traditional cultural spaces to shops, public transport and streets, from museums to industrial warehouses’10. What is being ‘brought’ or ‘taken’ to the remote regions is the notion of high art in addition to culture and art which is valued in art institutions through the system of canonised art. 3.4.

Representations of the Other in the Productions of Culturally Diverse Imagery One essential strategy of the discourse cultural diversity is to represent different minorities and their visual culture as signs of cultural diversity of the cities in question. However, the representations of minorities may underline the stereotypical imagery, in which the difference is turned into exoticism, tourist attraction or social question. The mosques in Pécs, with their minarets, flat domes and Islamic ornaments form an illustration, which turns the imagery of a religious group into the discourse of cultural diversity. The images of folkdance groups with colourful ethnic clothes on the web page of Pécs2010 (titled as The Multicultural City) visualise the discourse of cultural diversity, which is being performed to the (majority) audience. In various ‘multicultural’ events the cultural diversity is performed to the (majority) audience. The otherness in the discourse is produced with the images which underline the distinguished ethnic originality of cultural traditions and distinct cultural features and utilise the distinguished ethnicity of people as a base of representing diversity. For example in the book of Turku, the only image, in which people cannot be considered as ethnic Finns, illustrates a plan of a project titled Suburbia, which aims to activate the inhabitants of the immigrate inhabited suburbs to participate to the production of art. 4.

The Question of Power Cultural diversity is a profoundly political concept and its definitions and representations involve the power structures and production of cultural and political hierarchies. In the discourse of cultural diversity some groups or cultures seem to be more important than others: only some cultures and groups are promoted in the discourse. Moreover, the discourse itself is often produced from the power position of some majority group or culture. Can the discourse of cultural diversity ever be produced without the problematics of dominance and oppression? Do the social and cultural tensions always exist between the minorities and the majority? Nira YuvalDavis argues that, in multiculturalist policies, the naturalisation of the Western hegemonic culture will continue, while minority cultures become reified and differentiated from what is regarded by the majority as normative11. In addition, the discourse of cultural diversity tends to ignore the

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______________________________________________________________ questions of power relations inside minority cultures. The members of minorities are easily constructed as basically homogeneous, speaking with a unified cultural or racial voice. From the point of view of the hegemonic culture, these voices are constructed in a way that makes them as distinct as possible (within the boundaries of multiculturalism) from the majority culture, as an aim to make them ‘different’. Yuval-Davis remarks that such constructions do not allow space for internal power conflicts and interest differences within the minority collectivity12. These conflicts or interests may focus, for example on class, gender or politics. Collective boundaries are often presented as fixed, static, ahistorical and essentialists, with no space for growth and change. All members of the cultural collectivity are easily seen as equally committed to its culture13. It seems that power hierarchies and political tension are bound to the concept of cultural diversity even though it is often introduced as equal and anti-racist discourse. A central feature of the discourse of cultural diversity is that it tends to obscure its power mechanisms. Supporting and celebrating cultural diversity and cultural heterogeneity of the community may aim to eliminate inequality, however, dominance and subordination may be founded on the structures of the discourse itself. The hierarchical nature of the discourse provides multi-level challenges to the European Capitals of Culture to react and reflect to the foundations of the discourse. Facing these challenges requires considering culture in the social context.

Notes 1

Decision 1419/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 May 1999. EUR-Lex, viewed on 19 September 2008, . 2 S Hall, ‘The Multicultural Question’, Pavis Papers in Social and Cultural Research, vol 4, 2001, pp. 4. Viewed 2 June 2009, . 3 S Hall, ‘The Multicultural Question’, in Un/settled Multiculturalism: Diasporas, Entanglements, Transruptions, B Hesse (ed), Zed Books, London, 2000, pp. 210-211. 4 B Parekh, Rethinking multiculturalism. Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, Palgrave, Houndmills, 2000, pp. 166. 5 M Featherstone, ‘Global culture: an introduction’, in Global culture. Nationalism, globalisation and modernity, M Featherstone (ed), Sage Publications, London, 1990, pp. 2; J. Smiers, Arts under pressure. Promoting cultural diversity in the age of globalisation, Hivos, Hague, 2003, p 125.

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N Helander, S Innilä, M Jokinen & J Talve (eds), Turku on Fire.The Application of the City of Turku for the European Capital of Culture 2011. City of Turku, Turku, 2006, pp. 11. 7 J Takáts, Pécs, Borderless City. European Capital of Culture - Pécs, 2010. Pécs 2010 Application Centre, Pécs, 2005, pp. 17. 8 K Tarand, Everlasting Fairytale, Tallinn… Foundation for Tallinn as the Capital of Culture, Tallinn, 2006, pp. 11. 9 Tallinn - European Capital of Culture 2011. Application to Estonian inistry of Culture 2005, viewed on 18 September 2007, . 10 N Helander, S Innilä, M Jokinen & J Talve (eds), op.cit., pp. 42. 11 N Yuval-Davis, ‘Ethnicity, Gender Relations and Multiculturalism’, in Debating Cultural Hybridity. Multi-cultural Identities and Politics of AntiRacism, P Werbner & T Modood (eds), Zed Books, London, 1997, pp. 198. 12 N Yuval-Davis, op.cit., pp. 200. 13 N Yuval-Davis, op.cit.

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______________________________________________________________ Helander, N, Innilä, S, Jokinen, M & Talve, J (eds), Turku on Fire.The Application of the City of Turku for the European Capital of Culture 2011. City of Turku, Turku, 2006. Pääjoki, T., Taide kulttuurisena kohtaamispaikkana taidekasvatuksessa. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, 2004. Palmer, R. et al., European Cities and Capitals of Culture. Study Prepared for the European Commission. Part 1. Palmer/Rae Associates, Brussels, 2004. Parekh, B., Rethinking multiculturalism. Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Palgrave, Houndmills, 2000. Rastas, A, Huttunen L & Löytty O., ’Suomalainen monikulttuurisuus. Paikallisia ja ylirajaisia suhteita’, in Suomalainen vieraskirja. Kuinka käsitellä monikulttuurisuutta, A Rastas, L Huttunen & O Löytty (eds), Vastapaino, Tampere, 2005, pp. 16-40. Reme, E., ‘Exhibition and Experience of Cultural Identity. The Case of Bergen - European City of Culture’. Ethnologia Europaea, vol. 32:2, 2002, pp. 37-46. Smiers, J., Arts under pressure. Promoting cultural diversity in the age of globalisation. Hivos, Hague, 2003. Shore, C., Building Europe. The Cultural Politics of European Integration. Routledge, London & New York, 2000. _______

, and Black, A., ‘Citizen´s Europe and the Construction of European Identity’, in The Anthropology of Europe. Identity and Boundaries in Conflict. V. A. Goddard, J. R. Llobera and C. Shore (eds), Breg, Oxford, 1996, pp. 275-298. Takáts, J., Pécs, Borderless City. European Capital of Culture - Pécs, 2010. Pécs 2010 Application Centre, Pécs, 2005. Tallinn - European Capital of Culture 2011. Application to Estonian Ministry of Culture 2005, viewed on 18 September 2007, .

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______________________________________________________________ Tarand, K., Everlasting Fairytale, Tallinn… Foundation for Tallinn as the Capital of Culture, Tallinn, 2006. Yuval-Davis, N., ‘Ethnicity, Gender Relations and Multiculturalism’, in Debating Cultural Hybridity. Multi-cultural Identities and Politics of AntiRacism. P Werbner & T Modood (eds), Zed Books, London, 1997, pp. 193208. Tuuli Lähdesmäki is a PhD researcher of Art History in the Department of Art and Culture Studies at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the identity politics in the European Capitals of Culture system.

Reification in the Census? Multiculturalist Policies and Identity Markers in 36 Democracies Caroline Duvieusart-Déry Abstract The multiculturalist project and its emphasis on the value of cultural diversity have been criticised for its (often unintended) impact on attributing fixed meanings to identities, cultures and social membership. While previous arguments have so far remained mostly within the realm of political philosophy, this paper seeks to question the empirical relationship between multiculturalism and the institutional delineation of groups and boundaries, which is a premise to essentialisation and reification critiques. It does so through an examination of the ways in which states distinguish and categorise different groups and identities in national population censuses, the census being the most politically important means by which states depict collective identities. Basing its conclusions on the comparison of national censuses for 36 countries, this paper argues that there is in fact a link to be made between the strength of multiculturalist policies in a state and the use of identity categorisation in censuses. Thus, countries codified as being strongly multiculturalist are shown to be more likely to enumerate their population on the basis of ethnocultural markers of difference. Furthermore, a distinction is drawn between the types of identity markers favoured by countries with strong multiculturalist policies (which employ predominantly ethnic and racial referents) and those privileged by states with weaker multiculturalist programmes (who tend to categorise the respondents on the basis of citizenship status and national origin). These findings permit us to better understand how the goals and principles of multiculturalist strategies of managing diversity can impact the creation of particular collective identities or the reinforcement of specific group boundaries, normalising certain perspectives on diversity. At the same time, however, they point to the need for further specialised research on the effects of each type of categorisation on discrimination and the stigmatisation of certain groups as opposed to others. Key Words: Category, census, essentialisation, identity, immigration, multiculturalism, policy, reification. *****

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______________________________________________________________ It is now widely recognised that the concept of the nation-state, symbolised by the convergence of political and cultural boundaries, stands far from the reality of most modern states. However, the ways and strategies needed to address cultural heterogeneity within political frontiers are the source of much debate and disagreement among scholars and policy makers. On the one hand, theories of multiculturalism are founded on the idea that ‘policies of recognising and accommodating ethnic diversity can expand human freedom, strengthen human rights, diminish ethnic and racial hierarchies, and deepen democracy’1. Charles Taylor, for example, argues that preserving the diversity of cultures has an inherent value. In his own words, ‘nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being’2. Moreover, this recognition of the diversity of cultures and identities cannot take place in a context other than the multiculturalist state, since laws, rules and institutions, even when attempting to be culturally blind or neutral, are necessarily biased towards the identities and interests of the majority group. Multiculturalism and the recognition and support of diversity therefore stem from a concern for rights and justice, and consist in a duty for the civilised state to ensure the equality of all individuals and groups. On the other hand, the multiculturalist project suffers from strong normative and empirical criticism. This paper is mostly concerned with what I call ‘post-multiculturalist’ critiques, which challenge multiculturalism not on the basis of its principles, but rather with respect to the perverse effects and practical implications of its policies. The most common argument consists in that multiculturalism leads to cultural segmentation and reification of cultures and identities. Anthony Appiah, for example, condemns contemporary multicultural talk for its essentialising discourse, its tendency to presuppose ‘conceptions of collective identity that are remarkably unsubtle in their understandings of the processes by which identities, both individual and collective, develop’.3 Multiculturalism, as it is currently applied, pressures the individual to conform to a group culture, imposing a single and drastically simplified collective identity that denies the complexity and the multiplicity of people’s identifications.4 For critics, thus, multiculturalism not only ossifies identities, it also ‘encourage[s] [one] to view peoples and cultures as more systematically different than they are’. 5 Through the combined process of upholding differences among groups and imposing uniformity within them, multiculturalism and its ideals of equality and mutual respect are rather said to contribute to cultural stereotyping and to the illegitimate privileging of certain identity markers - in general, of ‘national’ and ‘ethno-cultural’ identities - over other possible forms of collective identities such as gender or sexual preference. 6 Both defences and critiques of multiculturalist policies have so far remained mostly within the realm of political philosophy, and even pervasive

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______________________________________________________________ arguments about the dangers of reification and essentialisation of ‘minority identities’ have so far not been the subject of empirical scrutiny. This paper seeks to address this gap by interrogating the relationship between the implementation of multiculturalist policies and the institutional delineation of groups and boundaries, premise to the essentialisation and reification critiques. It does so through an examination of the ways in which states distinguish and enumerate different groups and identities in national population censuses. Kertzer and Arel indeed emphasise the role of the census as ‘the most visible, and arguably the most politically important, means by which states statistically depict collective identities’7. This paper further serves to contribute to the literature on censustaking. In fact, previous studies found that not all countries use national or ethnic classifications in their censuses8 and that, when they do, the labels or categories employed vary widely. Some research works have emphasised regional (geographical) factors or the role of colonial legacy in explaining the presence and signification of identity categories9. Case-studies have also examined variation in the use and type of ethnic or national enumeration over time10. However, none of these studies have undertaken a systematic attempt to examine the relationship between the existence of multiculturalist policies and the salience of ethnocultural categorisation in censuses. At the junction between these two fields, the present paper is based on two research questions peering into the relationship between multiculturalism and the use of group enumeration in censuses. First, are countries with strong multiculturalist practices more likely to count their population through the use of census categories based on collective identity markers than states that have implemented fewer or no multiculturalist policies? Second, is it possible to identify a pattern in the choice of terms and categorisations that are used in these two models of managing diversity? In answering these questions, I use the concept of ‘multiculturalism’ only to refer to a type of state policy. It therefore diverges from the factual observation of cultural co-existence within the population of a country, but corresponds to Kymlicka’s use of the notion to cover ‘a wide range of policies designed to provide some level of public recognition, support or accommodation to non-dominant ethnocultural groups’11. Basing its conclusions on the comparison of national censuses for 36 countries, this paper argues that there is in fact a link to be made between the strength of multiculturalist policies in a state and the use of identity categorisation in national population censuses. After a short description of the methodology used, both research questions are tested separately. This paper ends with an interpretation of the results and a discussion of their potential implications for research on the relationship between multiculturalism and the shaping of identities.

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______________________________________________________________ 1.

Operationalising Multiculturalism: Strength and Type of Multiculturalist Policies The most fine-grained classification of the varying ‘strength’ of multiculturalist policies is the typology outlined by Banting et al. in their study of the impact of multiculturalism on the welfare state12. In their study, these scholars identified a series of policies representing the most common or emblematic multiculturalist strategies and classified a number of democracies as weakly, modestly or strongly multiculturalist according to the number of ‘multiculturalist’ policies (MCPs) implemented13. They further elaborated their index by classifying countries on three distinct dimensions, the scores being calculated separately for MCPs in place with regards to immigrants, to sizeable national minorities, and to indigenous peoples. This distinction is particularly interesting considering that states often rank at different levels on these various dimensions; Spain, for example, is said to implement numerous MCPs with respect to its national minorities, but is categorised as a weak multiculturalist state when examining immigrants’ integration. This differentiation further increases the validity of the results of the present study (even considering the limited number of countries included) since the relationship between the strength of MCPs and the salience of ethnocultural categorisation in censuses can be examined in three sub-selections of cases. The index developed by Banting et al. also has the advantage of having been applied to a relatively large number of states, which allows us to bring up to 36 countries from different continents in the present analysis14. The case selection for the present study is largely built on this preexisting sample put together by Banting et al.15. The hypotheses of this paper are tested through a survey of the approaches to population categorisation that those countries took on their 1995-2004 (or ‘2000-round’) censuses16. The total sample employed to that effect is composed of Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States and Venezuela. The countries included in each subanalysis, however, vary depending on the applicability or relevance of the criteria examined in each case. 2.

MCPs and the Inclusion of Identity Categorisation in Censuses The first research question explores the relationship between the strength of MCPs and the presence of a census question that enumerates the population on the basis of their belonging to an ethnocultural group. This is assessed separately for the three types of MCPs identified by Banting et al.17. In other words, when investigating the impact on census categorisations of MCPs related to immigrant groups, the presence of a question asking the

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______________________________________________________________ respondent to indicate his or her citizenship status, national origin, ethnic or racial group is codified as fulfilling the criterion of including a categorisation (Yes). In contrast, the assessment of the relationship in the case of MCPs directed towards national minorities is made on the basis of the absence or presence of a question which distinguishes specifically between the members of the majority group and those belonging to the national minority culture. Finally, with respect to MCPs oriented towards indigenous peoples, a state is classified as employing identity enumeration if the respondent is asked to indicate if he or she belongs to an indigenous group. As can be noticed in Table 118 (see appendix), not all countries of the total sample appear in all sub-types of MCPs, since not all of them have the demographic diversity that would justify the use/implementation of the three kinds of MCPs. Similarly, the Latin American countries have been classified by Van Cott19 only on the index of MCPs - indigenous peoples; hence they are only included in that section of the analysis. Table 1 provides an overview of the scores obtained on the three MCPs scales for the 36 countries under study. Table 2, in the appendix, displays the statistics (chi-square and Somer’s d) issued from the three analyses comparing the strength of the MCPs in each country with the presence of ethnocultural categorisation in the national population census. Countries which have implemented numerous MCPs with regards to national minorities and/or indigenous peoples are shown significantly more likely than states with weaker levels of MCP to categorise the members of the population on the basis of their belonging to, or identification with a national minority or indigenous group, respectively. Indeed, the Somer’s d of 0.566 and 0.331 are reasonably high as well as significant at 0.005 and 0.025 respectively. In contrast, the relationship between MCPs and census categorisation with respect to immigrants generates a Somer’s d coefficient of -0.126, illustrating a weak and negative association between the variables. These results, however, are not statistically significant (with a significance level of 0.421). Overall, the results obtained nevertheless demonstrate a relationship between the strength of multiculturalism and the use of census categories: countries with strong levels of MCPs are generally more likely to include collective identity markers as census questions. The examination of the results to the second research question serves to specify this relationship between MCPs and the types of labels and categories employed in censuses, and permits to nuance the findings of the sub-analysis on immigrant groups. 3.

MCPs and the Criteria of Differentiation Employed in National Population Censuses Having examined the relationship between MCPs and the presence of ethnocultural enumeration in censuses by distinguishing between the three types of MCPs defined by Banting et al.20, the analysis is now narrowed

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______________________________________________________________ down to the first of these sub-categories (MCPs directed towards immigrants) in order to answer the second research question. The multiplicity of labels and concepts that are used to identify and enumerate immigrant groups in censuses facilitates the identification of a pattern in the kinds of markers of group identity favoured by states with different strengths of MCPs to enumerate their population. The four types of questions (on citizenship status, country of birth, ethnicity and race), previously codified collectively as differentiating immigrants from the majority population, are now examined separately in order to observe if strong multiculturalist countries tend to enumerate their population according to ethnic and racial criteria (subjective markers) or if they rather predominantly employ labels and categories based on citizenship status or country of birth (objective markers). The absence of international standards to regulate national censustaking has led to much variation in the types of questions asked and the meaning attributed to specific terms in the questions. Because of this, census questions have been categorised not only on the basis of the actual label employed in the statement of the question, but also taking into account the response options provided. Citizenship status ‘relates to the legal nationality of the individual based on political allegiance’21. It differs from the concept of country of birth, which refers to geographic location, the place of birth of the respondent or the country of residence of his or her mother at the time of birth. The marker of ethnicity discerns groups with cultural commonality; shared beliefs, values or practices. While both the country of origin and the ethnicity response options can be very similar (often asking the respondent to choose among a series of country names), the former is characterised by focusing on the more ‘objective’ criteria of birth and ancestry, while the latter accentuates self-identification or belonging to a cultural community22. Finally, the term race ‘revolv[es] around physical or biological commonality’23. It organises the possible answers so as to count the respondent as part of a larger group often based on a colour criterion24,25. An overview of the categories employed in the national population censuses of the 18 countries ranked according to their number of MCPs (immigrants) is presented in Table 3, in the appendix. A quick look at Table 3 already displays a pattern between the variables, the countries ranking as modestly or strongly multiculturalists being most likely to classify their populations in terms of their belonging to ethnic or racial groups. At the other end of the spectrum, none of the 11 states that have implemented weak levels of MCPs use these markers to distinguish among the respondents. This observation is confirmed by the statistical assessment of the relationship between the levels of MCPs and each of the types of categorisations. In fact, the values of the Somer’s d that assess the strength and direction of the relationship between the level of MCPs and the inclusion of ethnic or racial categories in a census are moderately strong

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______________________________________________________________ (0.494 and 0.391 respectively), point in the hypothesised direction and are statistically significant at the 0.05 level. This association is further illustrated by the results of the relationship between MCPs and the use of citizenship categories, which presents a Somer’s d of -0.517 (with a significance level of 0.007). This indicates a quite strong negative relationship between the strength of MCPs and the categorisation of the population on the basis of who is a citizen and who is not. The results obtained with respect to the inclusion of questions on the country of birth of the respondents, however, are not conclusive considering their low statistical significance of 0.163 (for a Somer’s d coefficient of 0.276). All findings are summarised in Table 4, in the appendix. Overall, not only do these findings demonstrate that states with high levels of MCPs use more ethnic and racial classifications in their censuses, but they also – and most interestingly - indicate that these states are generally less likely to enumerate the respondents according to their citizenship status. This nuances the conclusions obtained in response to the first research question, and points out that if strongly multiculturalist countries are more likely to use collective identity markers to categorise their populations in national censuses, they also tend to employ particular categories of differentiation – that is, ethnic and/or racial categories. It further contradicts Goldscheider’s general assessment that ‘official censuses tend to favour more ‘objective’ rather than ‘subjective’ criteria (preferring, for example, place of birth data to questions of ethnic self-identification)’26, and points instead to the need for more specificity in understanding which identity markers are favoured as well as the impact of multiculturalism as a potential variable in this process. 4.

Bringing Together Theoretical and Empirical Discussions: Further Implications The influence of governmental activities such as census-taking on the creation and reinforcement of particular collective and personal markers of belonging has been firmly established by many scholars and warily recognised by a few state actors and census bureau officials27. Morning mentions that ‘official ethnic enumeration is not simply a scientific measurement of objective fact, but that it simultaneously shapes the identities it seeks to capture’28. Kertzer and Arel go on to emphasise that ‘in no sector is this more importantly the case than in the ways in which the census is used to divide national populations into separate identity categories: racial, ethnic, linguistic, or religious’29. The active impact of census-taking on identity and belonging is therefore fairly established, the most notable example being that of the enduring effect of institutionalised, state-built notions of nationality in the ex-USSR on collective identification, which resulted in the break-up of the Union on national territorial lines and the salience of ethnic/national

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______________________________________________________________ conflict even in post-communist Eastern Europe and the Balkans30. As of today, the census is still one of the most important and influential instrument of state control. Keeping this in mind, how can we start to understand the consequence of the observed relationship between the strength of multiculturalism and the use of census categories? If, as demonstrated, countries with strong levels of MCPs are more likely to enumerate their populations than states with weaker levels of MCPs, as well as to use ‘subjective’ markers of categorisation (ethnicity and race) in opposition with ‘objective’ referents (citizenship and country of birth), what does that tell us about the impacts of multiculturalism on collective identities? Does it reinforce boundaries and prejudice? Does it lead to the essentialisation of cultures and identities? The findings of this paper, while offering a strong foundation for further examination of these questions, also point to the need to be cautious as to the conclusions that can be inferred from them. The evidence gathered as an answer to the first research question suggests that multiculturalist states which make use of ethnocultural categorisations maintain a more important influence on shaping the collective identities of their populations, reinforcing particular visions of social reality while subverting others that are not useful for the purposes of state administration. For critics of multiculturalism, this influence comes together with an increased risk of essentialising ethnocultural identities, since ‘all people are assigned to a single category, and hence are conceptualised as sharing, with a certain number of others, a common collective identity. This, in turn, encourages people to view the world as composed of distinct groups of people and may focus attention on whatever criteria are utilised to distinguish among these categories’31. By objectively assessing the situation of subjective identities, censuses give legitimacy to the existence of a socially imagined group, and the use of particular categories and a particular way of thinking about people32. In other words, by placing respondents under certain categories, the census restricts their possibilities to express and reproduce fluid or mixed identities. The results obtained with regards to the second research question, however, highlight the need to be cautious in this assessment that MCPs produce more ethnocultural enumeration that, in turn, leads to greater risks of reifying subjective identities. In fact, putting the emphasis on the types of categories employed by countries with various strengths of MCPs reveals that states having implemented weak levels of MCPs do also classify their population, even though with different criteria and labels. Knowing this, we should rather examine if the use of ethnic or racial markers of difference as a basis of enumeration is more likely to lead to essentialisation and reification of group identities than a focus on citizenship status. We could intuitively consider that it is - after all, the former markers of collective identity are

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______________________________________________________________ much less based on objective or ‘formal’ criteria and might be said to draw subjective boundaries between individuals. However, I argue that what needs to be examined is not the actual categories that are employed (citizenship, country of birth, ethnicity or race), but rather the purpose which these classifications serve, when trying to understand their essentialising effects. Indeed, if the data collected on the citizenship status or the national origins of census respondents is used to infer particular traits or characteristics to those choosing certain response options, the potential for essentialisation is still as present, maybe even more so because these categories appear to be neutral or objective. In the same line of argument, some countries, seeking to avoid the controversy of employing terms like ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’, substitute these questions by other identifiers such as ‘language’ or ‘religion’33. Postcommunist states have been particularly inclined to make this substitution: many have preferred the label ‘language’ over ‘ethnicity’ in official censuses, employing the former as an indirect marker of the latter34. Are these censuses less prompt to essentialise the ‘groups’ so created? It seems unlikely. While the findings of this paper can provide an interesting foundation for arguments linking the implementation of MCPs to essentialisation of collective identities and cultures, they further accentuate the need to examine more thoroughly this relationship and to be cautious in interpreting the conclusions reached. 5.

Conclusion The multiculturalist project has been (and still is) the object of much debate, critics disputing the normative and/or pragmatic value of its goals and effects, with some calling either for its abandonment or radical transformation. As a rare attempt to provide an empirical account of the actual impact of multiculturalism on notions of collective identity and group boundaries that these theorists often speculate about, this paper studies national population censuses for 36 democratic countries in order to identify a pattern between the strength of the multiculturalist policies implemented and the presence/absence or type of ethnocultural enumeration employed. While the picture that emerges from this statistical comparison is mainly one of considerable diversity in the questions asked about identity, the results nevertheless reveal the existence of a significant association between the variables. Thus, countries codified as being strongly multiculturalist are generally shown to be more likely to enumerate their population on the basis of ethnocultural markers of difference. Furthermore, a distinction is drawn between the types of identity markers favoured by countries with high levels of multiculturalist policies (which employ predominantly ethnic and racial referents) and that privileged by states with weaker multiculturalist programmes (who tend to categorise the respondents on the basis of citizenship status and country of birth). These findings permit to better

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______________________________________________________________ understand how the goals and principles of divergent strategies of managing diversity and integration can reflect on a state’s approach to population enumeration. At the same time, however, they point to the need for further research as to how these categorisations influence notions of identity and difference. Indeed, this study helps to uncover the potential gap between the purpose of census-taking and its effects, with regards in particular to discrimination and the reification of collective cultures and group boundaries. If, as indicated by Goldscheider, ‘census definitions of ethnicity tell us more about the construction of ethnic categories within political ideologies than the reality of ethnic divisions,’35 it might as well be true that, once established and institutionalised, these ethnic categories serve to shape ethnic identities divisions in a way that was not expected nor wished for by policy-makers.

Notes 1 W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, pp. 18. 2 C. Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’ in A. Gutmann (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002 (expanded edition, 1994), pp. 25. 3 K. A. Appiah, ‘Identity, Authenticity, Survival: Multicultural Societies and Social Reproduction’ in A. Gutmann (ed) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002 (expanded edition, 1994), pp. 156. 4 N. Fraser, ‘Recognition Without Ethics’. Theory, Culture and Society vol. 18 (2). 5 A. Phillips, Multiculturalism Without Culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007, pp. 25. 6 S. Benhabib, The Claims of Culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. 7 D. I. Kertzer & D. Arel, ‘Census, Identity Formation, and the Struggle for Political Power’ in D. I. Kertzer & D. Arel (eds), Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 3. 8 According to Morning, “in an unpublished survey of census questionnaires, the United Nations found that 65% enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group” (See A. Morning, ‘Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round’ Population Research and Policy Review vol. 27, 2008, pp. 239). There are currently no international norms or regulations in place with regards to the enumeration of populations on ethnic or national bases, and the decision to include or

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______________________________________________________________ exclude questions on these aspects of group identity is left to the discretion of national sovereignty. 9 1) A. J. Christopher, ‘Questions of Identity in the Millennium Round of Commonwealth Censuses’ Population Studies vol. 60 (3), 2006. 2) Morning, op.cit., 2008. 10 1) M. C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles & Oxford, 1990. 2) M. Nobles, Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2000. 3) P. Skerry, Counting on the Census? Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2000. 11 Kymlicka, op.cit., pp. 16. 12 K. Banting, ‘Do Multiculturalism Policies Erode the Welfare State? An Empirical Analysis’ in K. Banting & W. Kymlicka (eds), Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. 13 These policies differ for each dimension, and include, for example, constitutional, legislative or parliamentary affirmation of multiculturalism, the inclusion of ethnic representation/sensitivity in public media or the funding of ethnic groups (MCPs immigrants); official language status, territorial autonomy or according international personality (national minorities); or recognition of self-governments rights, the upholding or signing of treaties and guarantees of representation/consultation in the central government (indigenous peoples). See Banting et al., ibid. 14 The index developed by Banting et al. (op.cit.) includes 21 European or North American countries, in addition to Japan (all of these states are included in my study with the exception of Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, for which no censuses were available). In the same volume, Van Cott complements this initial sample by classifying an additional selection of 19 Latin American democracies on the indigenous peoples’ MCPs scale (L. D. Van Cott, ‘Multiculturalism Versus Neoliberalism in Latin America’ in K. Banting & W. Kymlicka (eds), Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006). Of these supplementary cases, I had to exclude Paraguay for lack of access to a population census. 15 Banting & Kymlicka, op.cit. 16 Copies of the census questionnaires have been accessed on the United Nations Statistical Division website. When more than one questionnaire was available, I examined the ‘individual form’, or ‘personal form’ for the year that was closest to 2000. The majority of the questionnaires were examined

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______________________________________________________________ in their original language (for censuses originally published in French, English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish). The survey of the censuses for Austria, Finland, Greece, Japan, Norway, Portugal and Sweden has however been made on the basis of English translations. 17 Banting & Kymlicka, op.cit. 18 In the presentation of these and other results, I use the following labels: ARG for Argentina, AUS for Australia, AUT for Austria, BEL for Belgium, BEZ for Belize, BOL for Bolivia, BRA for Brazil, CAN for Canada, CHI for Chile, COL for Colombia, COS for Costa Rica, ECU for Ecuador, SAL for El Salvador, FIN for Finland, FRA for France, GRE for Greece, GUA for Guatemala, GUY for Guyana, HON for Honduras, IRE for Ireland, ITA for Italy, JAP for Japan, MEX for Mexico, NZE for New Zealand, NIC for Nicaragua, NOR for Norway, PAN for Panama, PER for Peru, POR for Portugal, SPA for Spain, SUR for Suriname, SWE for Sweden, SWI for Switzerland, UK for the United Kingdom, USA for the United States and VEN for Venezuela. 19 Van Cott, op.cit., 2006. 20 Banting et al., op.cit., 2006. 21 D. S. Goyer & E. Domschke, The Handbook of National Population Censuses: Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania, Greenwood Press, Westport & London, 1983. Examples of questions classified as ‘citizenship’ categorizations include Ireland’s (2002) “What is your nationality?” and Italy’s (2001) “Indicare la cittadinanza” (Indicate your citizenship). 22 Questions such as “What is your country of birth?” (UK 2001) and “Lugar de nacimiento” (Spain 2001 – Place of birth) then, pertain to a country of birth type of question, whereas “Which ethnic group do you belong to?” (New Zealand 2001) are taken to refer to ethnicity. 23 Morning, op.cit., 2008, pp. 241. 24 J. Lee & F. D. Bean, ‘America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification’, Annual Review of Sociology vol. 20, 2004, pp. 223. 25 ‘Race’ questions were regularly combined with ‘ethnicity’ questions, as is the case in the Canadian (2001) census. Without mentioning either the term ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ in the question (stated as “Is this person: ___ ?”), the proposed response options alternate race and ethnic answers: “White; Chinese; South Asian (e.g. East Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, etc.); Black; Filipino; Latin American; Southeast Asian (e.g. Cambodian, Indonesian, Laotian, Vietnamese, etc.); Arab; West Asian (e.g. Afghan, Iranian, etc.); Japanese; Korean; Other – specify”.

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______________________________________________________________ 26

C. Goldscheider, ‘Ethnic Categorizations in Censuses: Comparative Observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States’ in D. I. Kertzer & D. Arel (eds), Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 85. 27 Morning, op.cit., 2008. 28 Nobles, op.cit., 2008, pp. 264. 29 Kertzer & Arel, op.cit., 2002, pp. 2. 30 R. Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. 31 Urla 1992, cited in Kertzer & Arel, op.cit., 2002, pp. 5-6. 32 Kertzer & Arel, op.cit., 2002. 33 Christopher, op.cit., 2006. 34 Kertzer & Arel, op.cit., 2002. 35 Goldscheider, op.cit., 2002.

Bibliography Appiah, K. A., ‘Identity, Authenticity, Survival: Multicultural Societies and Social Reproduction’ in Gutmann, A. (ed) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (expanded edition, 1994). Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992, pp. 149-163. Banting, K., et al. ‘Do Multiculturalism Policies Erode the Welfare State? An Empirical Analysis’ in Banting, K. & Kymlicka, W. (eds) Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, pp. 49-91. Benhabib, S., The Claims of Culture. Princeton U. Press, Princeton, 2002. Brubaker, R., Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. Christopher, A. J., ‘Questions of Identity in the Millennium Round of Commonwealth Censuses’. Population Studies vol. 60: 3, 2006, pp. 343-352. Fraser, N., ‘Recognition Without Ethics’. Theory, Culture and Society vol. 18 (2), 2006, pp. 21-42.

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______________________________________________________________ Goldscheider, C., ‘Ethnic Categorizations in Censuses: Comparative Observations from Israel, Canada, and the United States’ in Kertzer, D. I. & Arel, D. Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 7191. Goyer, D. S. & Domschke, E., The Handbook of National Population Censuses: Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania.Greenwood Press, Westport & London, 1983. Kertzer, D. I. & Arel, D., ‘Census, Identity Formation, and the Struggle for Political Power’ in Kertzer, D. I. & Arel, D. (eds), Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 1-42. Kymlicka, W., Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007. Lee, J. & Bean, F. D., ‘America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification’. Annual Review of Sociology vol.20, 2004, pp. 221-242. Morning, A., ‘Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round’. Population Research and Policy Review vol. 27, 2008, pp. 239-272. Nobles, M., Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2000. Phillips, A., Multiculturalism Without Culture. Princeton U. Press, Princeton, 2007. Skerry, P., Counting on the Census? Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2000. Taylor, C., ‘The Politics of Recognition’ in Gutmann, A. (ed) Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992 (expanded edition, 1994) pp. 25-73.

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______________________________________________________________ United Nations Statistics Division, 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme, 2008. [online], page accessed multiple times from April 4-16, 2009. http://unstats.un.org//unsd/demographic/sources/census/ Van Cott, D. L., ‘Multiculturalism Versus Neoliberalism in Latin America’ in Banting, K. & Kymlicka, W. (eds) Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, pp. 272-296. Waters, M. C., Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles & Oxford, 1990.

Appendix Table 1. Strength of MCPs in 36 countries Strength of MCPs Weak Modest Strong Type of MCPs Immigrant groups

Sizeable national minorities Indigenous peoples

Total

AUT, FIN, FRA, GRE, IRE, ITA, JAP, NOR, POR, SPA, SWI FRA, GRE, JAP

BEL, NZE, SWE, UK, USA

AUS, CAN

18

ITA, UK, USA

BEL, CAN, SPA, SWI

10

BEZ, CHI, GUY, JAP, SAL, SUR, SWE

ARG, AUS, BOL, BRA, COS, FIN, GUA, HON, MEX, NIC, NOR, PER

CAN, COL, ECU, NZE, PAN, VEN, USA

26

Sources: Banting et al. 2006; Van Cott 2006.

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Reification in the Census?

______________________________________________________________ Table 2. Strength, Direction and Significance of the Relationships Chi-square Somer’s d Value Sign. Value Sign. Relationship examined MCPs immigrants & Question on identity markers

2.815

0.245

-0.126

0.421

MCPs national minorities & Question on national min.

15.667

0.016

0.566

0.005

MCPs indigenous peoples & Question on indig. Identity

29.752

0.000

0.331

0.025

Sources : United Nations Statistics Division, Banting et al. (2006), Van Cott (2006) and author’s estimations.

Table 3. Questions /categorisations included in the censuses for 18 countries. Inclusion of a question on… Country Strength of Citizenship National Ethnicity Race MCPs Origin AUT Weak X X FIN Weak X X FRA Weak X GRE Weak X IRE Weak X ITA Weak X X JAP Weak X NOR Weak POR Weak X X SPA Weak X X SWI Weak X BEL Modest NZE Modest X X SWE Modest UK Modest X X X USA Modest X X X X AUS Strong X CAN Strong X X X X Sources: United Nations Statistics Division, Banting et al. (2006), and author’s estimations. Data for AUT, GRE, ITA, NOR, POR, SPA, BEL, NZE, UK, AUS, and CAN are from 2001; for FIN, JAP, SWI, and USA from 2000; for FRA from 1999; for IRE from 2002; and for SWE from 1990.

Caroline Duvieusart-Déry

31

______________________________________________________________ Table 4. Strength of MCPs and type of categorizations employed Chi-square Somer’s d Value Sign. Value Sign. Relationship examined MCPs immigrants & Citizenship categories

8.059

0.018

-0.517

0.007

MCPs immigrants & Nation origin categories

2.095

0.351

0.276

0.163

MCPs immigrants & Ethnic categories

8.164

0.017

0.494

0.006

MCPs immigrants & Racial categories

5.760

0.056

0.391

0.030

Sources : United Nations Statistics Division, Banting et al. (2006) and author’s estimations.

Caroline Duvieusart-Déry recently obtained her Master of Arts in Political Studies from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. Her research interests include minority politics, multiculturalism and comparative studies of ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity.

Friday Re-educated: Orientalising the Eastern European Other in Rose Tremain’s The Road Home Józef Jaskulski Abstract The paper attempts to give an unorthodox interpretation of Rose Tremain’s Orange Broadband Prize-winning novel, The Road Home. Acclaimed as a work of humanity and labelled a composition of high sensitivity, Tremain’s novel may stir in the reader a serious questioning of the way the main protagonist, an immigrant from an unnamed new EU member state, is presented. I would like to analyse some practices appearing in the narrative that lead to the eventual, highly orientalised and patronising representation of the Eastern European Other in a work of contemporary British literature. A far-from-mainstream reading of The Road Home may display how its author, willingly or not, follows in the footsteps of imperialist, exoticising and selfvictimising practices visible in the works of Shakespeare, Defoe, Kipling, or Naipaul. In Lev, the main protagonist of the discussed novel, one may see how the narrative, beneath its undeniable humanity and empathy towards the Other, subordinates the Eastern European immigrant to the dominant patterns of representation. The paper argues that Lev can in fact be seen as another incarnation of the oriental qualities represented by Caliban, Friday, Mowgli, or Salim, thus turning Tremain’s novel into a work of what Said could refer to as a misguided contrapuntal reading. Her efforts are undermined by clichés and generalisations, transforming Lev into a subject of orientalist imagination, lost in the metropolitan space and consequently bound back home. Key Words: Hybridity, identity, immigration, otherness, orientalism, postcolonialism, representation. ***** First, I made him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life. I called him so for the memory of the time. I likewise taught him to say ‘Master’, and then let him know that was to be my name. I likewise taught him to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and to know the meaning of them. I gave him some milk in an earthen pot and let him see me drink it before him and sop my bread in it; and I gave him a cake of bread to do the like, which he quickly complied with, and made signs that it was very good for him. Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

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______________________________________________________________ May 1, 2004, the day of the biggest European Union enlargement, marked a significant breakthrough in the modelling of intra-European migration. The countries of the so called EU-15 were joined by ten new states, mostly the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Some of the EU-15 countries, led by the UK and Ireland, instantly opened their borders to immigrants from the new member states. Before long, not only major agglomerations but also rural areas of the Isles were flooded with newcomers looking for jobs. The immigrants brought with them their collective and individual languages, traditions, troubles, and stories of cultural difference. Those who settled in the UK rapidly appeared on its economic, demographic, and cultural maps. While these incoming migrants have since been a topic of artistic activities, most notably theatrical British and Eastern European productions, it had not been until 2007 that this migration became a leading theme of an internationally-acknowledged novel. The year saw the publication of Rose Tremain’s then latest work, The Road Home, which quickly gained acclaim and went to win the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Celebrated by such British broadsheet literary critics as Lavinia Greenlaw or Digby Durrant (and many others who follow suit)1, Tremain’s book unwillingly and unnoticeably follows into the imperialist, exoticising and self-victimising practices visible in the works of the colonial empire. The paper, therefore, provides an unorthodox reading of the novel that questions the way Lev, Tremain’s Eastern European immigrant protagonist, is presented. Despite her alleged ‘subtle and challenging account’ of Lev’s story2, Tremain gradually simplifies her characters. As critics point out in their unanimously favourable reviews of the book, she ‘writes as effortlessly and rhythmically as she breathes, tackling the serious misery of a hidden homesickness with a light and humane touch’3. Effortlessness and lightness, however, are not among literary best practices when handling dislocation, homelessness, and difference, for they may turn the gentlest work of prose, which The Road Home is, into a work of simplification and sentimentalism. A reading of The Road Home from the perspective of the misrepresented Other may display how its author presents the reader with totalising allegories of colonial narratives. In Tremain’s Lev, one may see how the narrative, beneath its empathy towards the Other, subordinates the Eastern European immigrant to the dominant patterns of representation and arrives at what Said could refer to as a misguided contrapuntal reading, i.e. an imperialistically-biased, unified interpretation of the Other4. Tremain seems to read immigrant stories monophonically. Though compassionate in her attempt to embrace them, identity Tremain simplifies them through archetypal generalisations. These include, among others, the Arcadian country, to which Lev belongs, along the set of ‘communist’ artefacts (most notably vodka, unfiltered cigarettes, and the ‘Soviet’ parlance); the country’s

Józef Jaskulski

35

______________________________________________________________ juxtaposition, i.e. England in the eyes of the Other as set of popular clichés; and a typology of immigrant labels, from the helpless creature to the selfpitying victim. All these, counterbalanced by Tremain’s humanitarianism, combine into a story of quasi-oriental imagination, a simulation of the gullible savage, lost in the metropolitan space and consequently bound back home. Tremain’s narrative is flawed with bountiful simplifications concerning the main protagonist’s background: his country of origin, its history, artefacts, and language. Presented throughout the novel as a generic allegory of Eastern Europe, the country illustrates two figments of colonial imagination. The first is the occidental construct of creative, orientalist geography, discussed by Said in his Orientalism. Tremain, either because of political correctness or conveniently defined licentia poetica, merely sketches a silhouette of Lev’s country. Its description is representatively uniform. ‘Darkness had always arrived in precisely the same way, from the same direction, above the same tree, whether early or late, whether in summer, winter or spring, for the whole of his life’5. According to Said, such a practice represents and fantasises on an oriental space that would otherwise remain unknown, silent, and dangerous6. The second is the post-imperial continuity of the colonial Arcadia, inhabited by Fridays, Mowglis, and Calibans. While reading the passages concerning Lev’s homeland, one may perceive them as occidental representations of spatial otherness. In the first chapter of the novel, Tremain describes Lev’s country: [Lev was] staring out at the land he was leaving: at fields of sunflowers scorched by the dry wind, at the pig farms, at the quarries and rivers and the wild garlic growing green at the edge of the road. (...) Most of the stuff sold in the Yarbl market was fledgling food: cabbage plants, sunflower seeds, sprouting potatoes, currant bushes, bilberry canes. But more and more people were indulging their halfforgotten taste for decorative, useless things and the sale of flowers was increasing as each year passed7. The quoted excerpt is one of many situating Lev’s homeland somewhere in the vast, quasi-pastoral space of Eastern Europe, once imperviously distant behind the Iron Curtain, now revealed for projections of bucolic imagery. Lev’s country appears to the reader as a vague construct, filled with agricultural symbols and provided a standardised material, economic, and historical background. The landscape, its components and inhabitants, are glued by provisional sentimentality. Originally meant to represent Lev’s homesickness, the visualisations of his memories are often unintentionally transformed into representations of Eastern European

36

Friday Re-educated

______________________________________________________________ landscape as seen by a Westerner. Lacking in particularities they tend to be overtly schematic, theatrical, just as Lev’s recollection of his daughter bedroom, which contains a set of pastoral props, with ‘its two beds, its rag rug, its chest of drawers painted green and yellow, its paraffin stove, and its square window, open to the cool air and the night dews and the cry of owls’8. Similarly to the spatial landscape, its material, historical, and economic counterparts are devoid of substance. Tremain writes Lev’s story, imposing on his past what Gayatri C. Spivak refers to as epistemological violence, i.e. the imposition of the writer’s privileged representation of the Other and the subsequent smothering of the actuality of the Other9. Tremain depicts Lev’s country in an unconvincingly allegorical manner. Lev’s home remains nameless throughout the novel. It carries a mixture of features typical of the Western image of the Soviet Bloc. Paraphrasing Said, it may be argued the novel’s chief role seems to be to support the Oriental-like character, providing fixed characteristics and guaranteeing the specifics of the Orient and its inhabitants10. Tremain’s settings resemble facades of buildings from Western movies, where the wooden frontages conceal cardboard imitations. Lev’s country also lacks in particular economic and linguistic aspects, generically presented as a country of lumberjacks, manual labourers, and party officials who oppress them. Here, decades of transformation melt into an amalgam of Western imagery. Perestroika, glasnost, the fall of communism, and the EU enlargement merge conveniently into one, anachronic process; it seems as if communism ended right along the coming of the New Deal of Brussels. Paraffin stoves are replaced with electricity only after Lev, who saved enough money working in the UK, comes back home to open his own restaurant. The language, however, still bears traces of clumsy, ideologically stylised communist parlance. People keep addressing each other as comrades, and official notices resound with communist gobbledygook, which, historically speaking, was commonly satirised and in casual language across the Soviet Bloc11. Communists in the novel conveniently fill in the massive void, both in the depiction of Lev’s country, and in the lacklustre individual characters. The shortage of complexity is easily covered up by putting the blame on communists. Communists spoiled the place’s history, resourcefulness, joy in life, even cuisine. The past is a set of post-communist artefacts, and so are the protagonists. Before he learns from his British tutors, the Eastern European Friday smokes Russian cigarettes, eats bland communist food, and drinks vodka, lacks in ‘the conscious effort to enter into the discourse of Europe and the West, to mix with it, transform it, to make it acknowledge marginalised or suppressed or forgotten histories of particular interest in Rushdie’s work, and in an earlier generation of resistance writing’12. Saidian ‘voyage in’ is replaced by the voyage backwards; no conscious effort to enter the discourse is made. Lev does not transform the dominant discourse, and gets suffocated

Józef Jaskulski

37

______________________________________________________________ by its workings. His history and histories of millions of nameless immigrants are suppressed and of no particular interest in Tremain’s work, as they are substituted for cheap allegories and commodified. Among Lev’s companions the reader may find other clichéd immigrant sketches, e.g. Ahmed, a Turkish kebab seller that hates Greeks, Panno, a Greek restaurateur who loves his English customers; and Christy Lane, an Irish divorced plumber, who hates his English wife. Everyone is as hackneyed as it gets. As Salman Rushdie put in his Imaginary Homelands, though the Empire is over, ‘the stereotyping goes on. Blacks have rhythm, Asians work hard’13. Counterbalancing Lev’s generic homeland is England. Filtered through the rather crude sensibility of the immigrant protagonist, it comes up as another set of popular culturally biased, clichéd oppositions. So do the dialectic bonds developed between the protagonists representing the two orders. As a result of transcultural meetings, several paradigms of asymmetrical Master-Slave relationships can be observed, involving Lev’s interaction with the English. These modes of interaction resemble patterns developed beforehand by the canon of English literature. They include the master figure in command of the Caliban-Friday figure, a paranoid construct of pity, delight, and terror, helpless creatures, skilful imitators, fearsome barbarians, and cultural ignoramuses14. Living in London, Lev perceives the city as an alien space. So does his friend Vitas, a kitchen porter at GK Ashe. Native American critic of the western Ward Churchill claimed the representations of Indians in Hollywood were merely associative fantasies of a master race. In Tremain’s novel, not only can one observe fantasies of the master race, but also on the master race. Lev and Vitas represent the immigrants limited in their perception of an alien space, and completely unaffected by their dislocation. They are persistently depicted as misfits, stubbornly fixed in their homesickness. When placed back at home, they are as if magically carried back to the moment they left home. Lev’s recognition of England is reduced to stereotypes built around a slave mind. He is unable to reinterpret and rewrite his hybrid history the way some of the British immigrant fiction writers, such as Salman Rushdie, Monica Ali, or Zadie Smith, did in their stories. To Lev, London signifies twenty pound Elgar notes, Princess Diana postcards, terraced house cosiness, and restaurant interiors. Lev requires guidance, which is not surprising for any newcomer. However, and that is most astonishing, he requires guidance throughout the narrative, eventually winding up with a simulation of selfconsciousness when he decides to launch his own business back home. His decision is an indirect result of mimicry practices carried out by Lev in the course of his capitalist ‘education’. Lev’s relationship with his boss, restaurateur GK Ashe, quickly falls into the paradigm of cultural tutelage. GK Ashe masters Lev’s selfperfection, teaching him culinary art and later, acquainting Lev with the

38

Friday Re-educated

______________________________________________________________ know-how of catering trade. The restaurateur figure, fashioned overtly after Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen, lets himself be emulated by Lev. Even when he is fired from GK Ashe, Lev persists in imitating him and calling him ‘Chef’, just like Defoe’s Friday kept calling Robinson ‘Master’. In a covert accordance with Crusoe’s ethics, these practices are judged beneficial for Lev, it seems, as he returns home and – by mimicking GK Ashe’s enterprise – ‘teaches’ his family and friends the good practices of capitalist business. Lev’s relationship with GK Ashe, with the latter ignorant of the former’s roots, is a perfect illustration of Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic. As Frantz Fanon put it, ‘the master laughs at the consciousness of the slave. What he wants from the slave is not recognition but work’15. Discussing the breakthrough in the Slave’s thinking, Said argued that ‘to achieve recognition is to restart and then occupy the place in imperial cultural forms reserved for subordination, to occupy it self-consciously, fighting for it on the very same territory once ruled by a consciousness that assumed the subordination of a designated inferior Other. Hence, reinscription’16. Tremain omits the crucial, subsequent stage of reinscription. Lev is everything but self-conscious, he merely emulates what he was taught. He transfers the Master-Slave paradigm on his black helper Simone when he asks her to call him ‘Chef’. He is nowhere near Said’s self-consciousness. Tremain’s resolution of the relationship between periphery and the centre is perverted. No insurgent rewriting takes place in Lev’s consciousness. After the old communist order is replaced by private venture, the protagonists start leading lives depicted in V.S. Naipaul’s Mimic Man: There, in Liege, in a traffic jam, on the snow slopes of the Laurentians, was the true, pure world. We, here on our island, handling books printed in this world, and using its goods, had been abandoned and forgotten. We pretended to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World17. The difference between Naipaul’s postcolonial location and Tremain’s hazy location is that while the inhabitants of the former acknowledge their inferior status, the dwellers of the latter remain blissfully unaware of their mimic provisionality. Lev also surrenders to his crude sexuality in his relationship with Sophie, an English co-worker at the restaurant. Lev is to Sophie an attractive, exotic stranger, quickly winning her affections. In their relationship, Lev is ascribed qualities representative of what Gerald Vizenor called the coloniser’s paranoia, i.e. a narration loaded with an implicit fear of the colonised phallus as a threat to the white woman’s integrity18. When Sophie cannot bear with Lev’s possessive nature and rejects him, his longing for her

Józef Jaskulski

39

______________________________________________________________ physiognomy, so different from the women in his country, intensifies, and he eventually rapes her when she visits him for reconciliation: He hauled her legs up, up till her calves were resting on his back. Never left her mouth, not for a second. She was half crying, moaning but not in fear – he could tell, couldn’t he? Couldn’t he tell that her fear was gone and she had it all back, her appetite, her insatiable, irresistible greed for the male19? Lev’s emotionality is reduced to sexual longing. He rebels against the quasicolonial order that forbids him further sexual encounters with the English woman he desires. However, his rebellion is futile, resembling projections of the haunted, colonial mind. He destroys the object of his desire and enacts the paranoid fantasy of rape that the Empire so fears of victim and oppressor. After all, it is Sophie that gets abused, and Lev that is the brutal male who knows that if the woman says ‘no’, she may in fact mean ‘yes’. The key performer in the paranoid melodrama of beset empire, to paraphrase bell hooks’ phrase, Lev also acts as a cultural ignoramus. Invited to a classical music concert, he says to Lydia, ‘I’ve never been to a concert like this, Lydia, only folk-music performances in Baryn’20. When he grudgingly consents to accompany her, he violates the concert hall’s code of conduct when his ring tone goes off just before the orchestra begins to play: in this vital moment before the Elgar cello concerto began, it was playing merrily along. (...) The hundred outraged faces of the orchestra looked in Lev’s direction. (...) In a daze of mortification, Lev stood up. Without glancing at Lydia, he pushed past fourteen or fifteen concert-goers, ran down the steps and out of the auditorium. He kept running. He found the nearest exit and went out into the night21. Tremain presents him in a sympathetic way, evoking in the reader compassion towards blissful ignorance and animalistic panic of the protagonist. The scene bears much resemblance to Stephen Sommers’s screen adaptation of Jungle Books, where Mowgli storms out of the ballroom humiliated by sneers and pranks of the colonial officials. Needles to mention, he immediately gets piss drunk to ease his weltschmertz. He is yet another, simplified outsider lost in the metropolitan space he does not comprehend22. The generic cultural ignorance of Eastern Europeans is highly pronounced in yet another scene, where Lydia, acting throughout the book as the mediator between the English Masters and Lev the Slave, presents him with a copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

40

Friday Re-educated

______________________________________________________________ ‘Thank you Lydia. I once saw some Russian film of this, but I have never read it’. ‘No. I didn’t expect you had, Lev. Who has read Hamlet in Auror? But this edition has very thorough notes to help you understand. If you turn to the back, you will see there are notes’23. Not only Lev, but also his compatriots seem totally oblivious of the most canonic drama ever written. Luckily, he is given a version that allows him to read with handicap. Despite this amazing facilitation, it is still difficult to make him read Shakespeare. ‘You should persevere. You may find something of yourself in the character’, says Lydia24. (Perhaps Lydia should have reconsidered her choice of Shakespearian readings selected for Lev, for it is blatantly clear that he would have found much more of himself in Othello or The Tempest). Concluding the catalogue of gaffes in Tremain’s ‘sweet-tempered book’25, it can be argued that representation of the Other, if provided as a sentimental novel may produce a major failure, despite its best intentions. By constructing generic characters, regions and histories, and by putting words into the mouths of migrants, Tremain merely reshuffles the set of stale clichés. Her characters and their stories are fake. They remain figurines enlivened by the imagery of the author. While in most postcolonial texts the perspective changes to that of the Other, in Tremain’s novel the Other remains a cover-up for keeping up the traditions of sentimentalist writings of the likes of H.B. Stowe or V. Hugo. Similarly to Uncle Tom or Esmeralda, Lev is a fixed simulation of hybridity with an Eastern European label. Labels, however, ‘are no more than starting-points’26. Therefore, however noble Tremain’s intentions were, the ease with which she managed to dispense with the complexity of otherness and hybridity, and the smoothness of them being taken for granted make her novel disastrously generalising. One could say, paraphrasing Rushdie’s opinion on the value of Kipling, that there is enough in Tremain’s story that makes it impossible to ignore; but there will also always be plenty in her that makes it difficult to forgive27.

Notes 1 D Durrant, ‘Return of the Native’, last updated on June 21, 2007, viewed on August 5, 2009, .

Józef Jaskulski

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______________________________________________________________ 2

Random House, critical praise of ‘The Road Home’, last updated June 12, 2008, viewed on August 6, 2009,. 3 Ibid. 4 E Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books, London, 1994, pp. 78. 5 R Tremain, The Road Home, Vintage Books, London, 2007, pp. 4. 6 E Said, Orientalizm [translated into Polish by M. Wyrwas-Wisniewska], Zysk i S-ka, Poznan, 2005, pp. 100. 7 R Tremain, op. cit., pp. 1-7. 8 Ibid, pp. 15. 9 L Ghandi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 86. 10 E Said, Orientalizm, pp. 101. 11 R Tremain, op. cit., pp. 256. 12 E Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books, London, 1994, pp. 261. 13 S Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, Granta Books, London, 1992, pp. 138. 14 G Vizenor, Fugitive Poses. Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2000, pp. 39. 15 E Said, Culture and Imperialism, pp. 253. 16 Ibid, 254. 17 V S Naipaul, The Mimic Men, Andre Deutsch, London, 1967, pp. 187. 18 G Vizenor, Fugitive Poses, pp. 39. 19 R Tremain, op. cit., pp. 241. 20 Ibid, pp. 91. 21 Ibid, pp. 98. 22 I Buruma – A Margalit, Occidentalism: the West In the Eyes of Its Enemies, Penguin, New York, 2004, pp. 16. 23 R Tremain, op. cit., pp. 133. 24 Ibid, pp. 184. 25 Random House, op. cit.. 26 E Said, Culture and Imperialism, pp. 407. 27 S Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, pp. 80.

Bibliography Buruma, I. – A. Margalit, Occidentalism: the West In the Eyes of Its Enemies, Penguin, New York, 2004.

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______________________________________________________________ Durrant, D., ‘Return of the Native’, last updated on June 21, 2007, viewed on August 5, 2009, . Ghandi, L., Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Naipaul, V.S., The Mimic Men, Andre Deutsch, London, 1967. Rushdie, S., Imaginary Homelands, Granta Books, London, 1992. Said, E., Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books, London, 1994. Said, E., Orientalism [translated into Polish by M. Wyrwas-Wisniewska], Zysk i S-ka, Poznan, 2005. Tremain, R., The Road Home, Vintage Books, London, 2007. Vizenor, G., Fugitive Poses. Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2000. Józef Jaskulski is a Phd candidate at the AMU School of English, Poznan, Poland.

Parochialism - Revitalisation – Development: How to Build the Economic and Cultural Environment by Changing the Local Space Dariusz Waldzinski and Eliza Chodkowska Abstract In this article, a thesis is adopted that the development of small towns is a function of planned changes in their space. Thereby, through revitalisation processes it is possible to build a parochial socio-economic circle deciding about the local identity that in turn is propitious to the growth of competitiveness of those centres. The authors make an attempt to show the connections between the socio-economic and spatial development of a small town and the sphere of local culture. Those connections as well as the influence of cultural aspects on the socio-economic development are exemplified in the article through an examination of selected small towns of the Warmian-Masurian region in Poland. Key Words: Local development, parochialism, revitalisation. ***** 1.

Introductory Remarks The latter part of the 20th century marked a transformation of global economic and cultural understandings. This most recent revolutionary process, similar to the two previous historical revolutions (the Neolithic and Industrial), touched all aspects of human life including methods of management, individual and communal relationships, political systems, and particularly the method of exercising official authority. The first revolution, the Neolithic, which took place between 8000 and 4000 BC, marked a transition from the primitive economy to the agrarian economy. The next, the Industrial Revolution, describes the general transition from agrarian economies to an industrial economy. This revolution was intricately tied to the Age of Renaissance and then the Age of Enlightenment. In modern times, we have seen the transition from the industrial economy to what is frequently called knowledge-based economy. Due to its global character, the present transformation is also often generally referred to as globalisation. A holistic perspective of these three transformations implies the necessity to perceive them as they have manifested themselves economically and culturally at all spatial levels - from the level of local structures and nation-states, to supranational structures and the global system. The article pays particular attention to the nature of the local level, focusing on the

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______________________________________________________________ economic and cultural transformations of small towns. The aim of the article is to characterise local changes, especially as they impact the local identity which we refer to as ‘parochial’. This essay suggests that one of the most important ways to assist parochial economic and cultural circles to adapt to changing regional, national, continental, global environments is the formation of the local public space. Most frequently, this is done by means of the activity called revitalisation. Revitalisation can be defined as the direct or indirect, creative impact by local authorities on public elements of the material space. In developing the durable qualitative aspects of a local environment, revitalisation through various kinds of city development, leads to changes in the function of public space. The theses presented in the article focus on Europe and are based on theoretical and empirical research conducted in small towns in the Warmian and Masurian region, one of the most structurally neglected regions in Poland. The research was carried out within the framework of a grant financed by the Polish government. 2.

A History of Economic and Cultural Transformation of European Towns Throughout history, towns have been both the subjects and objects of economic and cultural transformations. During the period of agrarian economy, towns stood as centres of development within the surrounding agricultural areas. In the civilisation of ancient Greece, for instance, poleis were not only domiciles of free, land-owning citizens, they were also centres of power, art, architecture, religious worship, and political and philosophical thought. During the Middle Ages, both large and small towns started to form economic and cultural identities. This formation was often based on the independence of kings who frequently had to court seigniors' and municipal governments' political and economic favour. The foundation of autonomous towns of that time was, on the one hand, feudal power connected with land ownership of secular and ecclesiastical seigniors, including princes, counts, barons, etc., as well as bishops and abbots. On the other hand, the political power of towns was determined by economic reasons. For instance, larger towns were administered by wealthy townspeople who engaged in craft and business. In those towns, the institution of municipal governments was formed, which simultaneously partnered and competed with feudal rulers. Cumulating both material and non-material experience, towns began to form unique social identity1. The phenomenon of identity may also be considered from an anthropological perspective, the expression of which can be for instance local memory or local knowledge2. The modern period, and particularly the Industrial Revolution arising from the Enlightenment philosophy, caused significant changes in the

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______________________________________________________________ operation of towns. First, towns lost their political and economic autonomy, submitting to the institutions of nation-states originating at that time. Secondly, a change of the economic structure contributed to changes in the urban structure of public space, which had been worked out for centuries, as well as its functions. Factories were usually located outside old centres that filled the role of local market spaces. The political, economic and spatial changes were followed by cultural changes. In this place, it is proper to have a closer look at the correlations. 3.

Functions of the Local Space in the Economic and Cultural Environment of a Town The term 'culture' is not univocal. It is studied primarily by sociologists, culture experts and anthropologists. From the position of economy, the phenomenon is investigated primarily by specialists in organisational management and marketing as well as international market analysts. For example, while presenting the organisational anthropology point of view, G. Hofstede defines ‘culture’ as ‘the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one category of people from those of another’. Following this way of thinking - according to the ascertainment of W.J. Keegan and M.C. Green – ‘a particular category of people may constitute a nation, an ethnic group, a gender group, an organisation, a family, or some other unit’3, including also - which is a natural expansion of the presented thesis - local and urban communities. S. Hollensen defines cultures as having three main characteristics. First, culture is learned. This is, culture is ‘acquired by people over time through their membership in a group that transmits culture from generation to generation’. From birth, the members of a given group internalise the values of the community in order to interact with others, gain rewards and avoid punishment, fulfil needs and avoid conflict. Culture is also interrelated, meaning the various facets of a culture are deeply connected to all other parts such as religion and marriage, business and social status. Lastly, culture is shared, implying that the tenets of a culture extend to all the members of the group4. In the case of towns, the following elements, which we categorise as objective, subjective, task- or attribute-oriented formulations, drive the creation of the town’s culture. In terms of the objective formulation, culture is made up of a broad range of aspects: traditions, customs, attitudes and behaviours, at the base of which there are ethnic conditions, language, historical events, and religion; and natural, economic and social resources (such as collective memory) which are necessary to satisfy material and nonmaterial collective needs of the group members; In what we term the ‘subjective’ formulation includes local institutions such as enterprises, local authorities, churches, educational

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______________________________________________________________ institutions, and non-government organisations. The ‘task-oriented’ formulation describes the basic tasks of the inhabitants such the exercising of official power, supplementing economic activity, protecting existing cultural heritage, and initiating new culture-forming processes. The attribute-oriented formulation focuses on quantitative and qualitative transformations which occur in all areas and aspects of the urban space. Economists identify such changes with local development. It should be emphasised that in the modern concepts of local and regional development a special role falls on holistically understood environments, in which economic, social, technological, political and cultural elements, phenomena and processes intermingle5. All the elements mentioned - in the objective, subjective, functional and attribute-oriented formulations - create the economic and cultural environment of a town. The concept of the local space is of significant importance as it provides the material and non-material dimensions to a town. For example, the local space creates conditions necessary for carrying on economic activity by preparing the necessary economic and technical infrastructure for new investments in towns. The local space also creates the conditions for the harmonious coexistence and civic co-operation of various social, ethnic and religious groups, as well as stimulating the functioning of educational, scientific, research and development. 4.

Parochialism versus Globalisation From the point of view of small towns, the following aspects of the present economic and cultural transformations should be included among the most important ones: (1) intensive development of supranational economic structures - production and trade enterprises, banks and stock exchanges, which create global networks of markets, communication and transport; (2) ruthlessness of the laws of the market, the effect of which are bankruptcies of unprofitable enterprises and privatisation of economic entities as the basic paradigms of the global market economy; (3) liquidation or limitation of importance of local and national markets and industries; (4) export of capitals (portfolio investments) as well as other production factors and labour resources (people, especially those who are best educated and have most initiative); (5) increase in competitiveness of enterprises and productivity, primarily due to more and more common application of innovations (product, process, technological, organisation and marketing ones); (6) increase in financial differences and incomes between countries and between people in particular countries; (7) increase in unemployment; (8) increase of importance of the problems of multiculturalism, which consists in the phenomenon of territorial co-existence of social groups of different origin and with different systems of axiology and collective identity; (9)

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______________________________________________________________ reconfiguration of positions and tasks of the political subjects that are fundamental for the modern period and the industrial economy, which is manifested by gradual loss of importance of nation-states with their (traditionally understood) sovereignty, consisting in performing inter alia such functions of levelling the market deficiency as: ensuring safety, care, working conditions, etc. The economic and cultural consequences of globalisation include also: pressure of consumption, increase in financial differences, increase in unemployment, increase of the importance of multiculturalism, changes in the system of values as well as a decline of traditionally understood religiousness6. In modern times, in the conditions of practical implications of the globalisation processes, small towns belong to those spatial structures that suffer most. In the opinion of the most staunch advocates of globalisation, that situation is natural and arises from what they define as 'the cleansing power of the market'. In the light of that concept, only efficient structures that are able to adapt themselves to the multi-aspectual changes occurring in the global environment should remain in the global markets. The most important characteristics of such adaptation are: endogenous ability to create innovations, learning, forming one's competitiveness, quick reacting to changes, active presence of creative human resources, skill of gaining new investors as well as free of conflicts, in social respect, absorption of new philosophical, cultural, political and technological ideas. The necessity of adaptation to new challenges is also defined as a sort of a 'cleansing shock', which refers to the Hegelian dialectic where development is a consequence of clashing of 'the old state of things with the new one'. Those that are able to adapt themselves will survive and will be developing, whereas 'the losers are doomed to a gradual decay'. The most pessimistic, and thereby also emotional, view is the conviction that small towns, which are deprived of investments and most effective labour resources, will gradually become depopulated, leaving deserted buildings and other facilities of infrastructure behind. In the USA are several hundred deserted towns and country towns. This also refers to large industrial towns. For instance, the population of Detroit has decreased from 2.5 million to 900 thousand for the last forty years. Next, according to the optimistic concept, in a longer period of time degradation of small towns brings positive effects for the whole community. This results from the conviction that in the scale of the whole country or region, economy entering a higher level of development allows the official authorities to take care of victims of that process effectively. In spite of the optimistic implication, the situation of subordination of 'the weaker' to 'the stronger' through assistance itself, particularly one of public character, is not 'wholesome'. As in small towns, degradation of their financial, not seldom natural and human resources takes place. In consequence, local communities

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______________________________________________________________ become helpless towards challenges ensuing from globalisation. That particular helplessness is the basic criterion of parochialism. Thus, parochialism ceases to be identified with the local specific nature of cultural identity, with the characteristic uniqueness arousing sentiment and exciting curiosity of anthropologists. Instead, it becomes a synonym of partial or full degradation of resources as well as the phenomena and processes occurring between economy and culture. How, in such a case, to cope with the situation? One of methods allowing the reconstruction of parochial economic environments is a change of the local space. A tool that serves that purpose is revitalisation. 5.

Revitalisation as a Tool for a Change of the Local Space Most frequently, revitalisation is understood as 'giving new life' to neglected, inactive or not very active spatial structures. Its basic objective is giving those structures - buildings, factory shops, barracks or other fragments of the urban space - new functions. These can be economic, administrative, social, scientific and didactic or cultural functions7. However, due to the essence and the specific nature of the urban economic and cultural environment, the functions should intermingle. In this connection, it should be assumed that building of the urban economic and cultural environment through arrangement or a change of the local space provides proper conditions for creating local development. If the experience related to revitalisation of urban areas in metropolises and other large or even middle-sized towns is known, the specific nature of revitalisation of small towns, far-away from political, administrative, economic, scientific and cultural centres still needs study and reflection. Such a situation is characteristic of small towns of the Warmian and Masurian region in north-eastern Poland. As it has already been stated in the introductory remarks, this is the region that is particularly neglected, chiefly in respect of the structure of economy. In the period of real socialism, the agricultural sector and small industries connected with its service prevailed in the structure of the region's economy. The tourist sector, making use of the unique values of the Masurian Lake District, has also been an important part of the region's economy. What else had an effect on the lack of bigger investments was the vicinity of the former Soviet Union. Real socialism did not contribute to the formation of economic culture in the region, either. In the period before the Second World War, it was a part of Germany. At that time, the traditions of entrepreneurship based on local markets focused just round small towns developed there. After the end of the war and incorporation of the region into Poland, the German population was forced to leave their homeland, and the Polish population appeared, who, in turn, had had to leave their homeland incorporated into the former Soviet Union. Besides, by a political decision of the communist

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______________________________________________________________ authorities, the Ukrainian population formerly inhabiting the regions of south-eastern Poland was displaced to the region by force. Thus, in the period of real socialism, local economic and cultural environments were not formed in small towns of the region. There was no market economy, no democracy and liberty of speech, no possibility of free operation of non-government organisations. Furthermore, the local population was passive in respect of civic activity that was a consequence of the conditions created by the totalitarian political system on the one hand and the lack of social capital, the specific foundation of the economic and cultural environment on the other hand. For 45 years, until the first democratic election to the territorial self-government in 1990, the population of small towns of the region lived and worked in the feeling of temporariness, not identifying themselves in full with a specific place. As a result of the changes connected with the political system transformation in Poland, which was related to the transition to a marketoriented economy and the introduction of a democratic political system, economic and cultural environments started to be built in small towns. However, the processes connected with it were impeded and complicated by intermingling economic and cultural transformations in all areas of human activity. This way, the transformations in the political and economic spheres as well as in the technological and cultural spheres overlapped. Globalisation, the sources of which are beyond power of influence of the inhabitants of small towns, has been of increasing importance. Local industrial enterprises had to crash, as they did not defy external competition, not only global competition but also domestic one. Besides, the process of migration started and the most valuable labour resources left their homeland, whereas the least educated and thereby least resourceful people stayed in the towns. Unemployment increased considerably, and the local labour markets collapsed. Considerable support for the process of the Polish political system transformation started in 1989-90, particularly with reference to the situation of small towns, was Poland's integration into the European Union that conducts active cohesion policy. Consequently, small towns could formulate their most important strategic policies and development objectives, making use of financial resources coming from the EU structural funds. Part of the resources is allocated to activation of the processes of revitalisation of urban areas. It may be well to notice that as a result of the reforms made, many small towns obtained the status of district towns, which contributed to deepening of the local social ties, growth of subjectivity of the local communities as well as strengthening of their political and administrative importance. In accordance with the Polish institutional conditions, revitalisation of urban areas may relate to renewal and giving new functions to post-

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______________________________________________________________ industrial, post-military areas, historic town centres, residential complexes built in the times of real socialism of so-called 'large panel' as well as to nonbuilt-up areas. So far, i.e. until mid 2009, the programmes of revitalisation have been realised in 24 towns of all 49 towns in the region (96 mln EURO). Until 2013, the implementation of 28 programmes to the total of 83 mln EURO. The studies of effectiveness of the programmes that have already been carried out are just being conducted by the authors of this article. But even now it can be observed that the objectives of both those carried out and planned programmes are - in the context of building urban economic and cultural environments - oriented primarily at performing the location, social, town-planning as well as the aesthetic and promotion functions. Inconsiderably, instead, if at all, the programmes are oriented at performing the innovative and culture-forming functions. Unfortunately, such an approach creates not too optimistic perspective for elimination of the features characteristic of parochialism understood as helplessness towards the phenomena related to globalisation and the knowledge-based economy. Yet, the studies of the presented problem are just going on. 6.

Final Remarks In order to build the urban economic and cultural environment by changing the local space, particularly in small towns that are very often helpless towards globalisation, it is necessary to plan and carry out all functions of the local space in a harmonious way. The location, social, innovative, town-planning, culture-forming, aesthetic and promotion functions must be meant. In the conditions of challenges to the local development policies resulting from the present economic and cultural transformations, the innovative and culture-forming functions are of key importance, obviously not neglecting the others. Only this way it is possible, in a determinable strategic perspective, to level the negatively perceived, pessimistic features characteristic of the phenomenon of parochialism. These include primarily helplessness and the lack of possibility of development, which in course of time may lead to depopulation of small towns, not mentioning lack of new investments and activation, 'harmonising' with globalisation tendencies of the local entrepreneurship. Thus, the creation of parochial economic and cultural environments is a chance to initiate the endogenous development potential, and one of tools serving that purpose is revitalisation allowing arrangement or simply a change of the local space. From the studies conducted by the authors, at the present stage, it appears that in small towns of the Warmian and Masurian, the revitalisation programmes that are being carried out or are planned are, unfortunately, inconsiderably oriented at the innovative and culture-forming functions of the local space. Naturally, this is not a favourable trend.

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______________________________________________________________ In the small towns under investigation, fundamental threat is integration of the parochial local communities into the global cultural tendencies. Undoubtedly, the problem needs further studies as well as a serious political and economic reflection of all the people who form those communities.

Notes 1

From among many concepts of identity, the authors understand it in the way presented by M. Castells, see - M. Castells, The Power of Identity, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1999. 2 See for example - C. Geertz, Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, Basic Books, Parseus Books, 2000, Copyright for Polish Translation and Edition by Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków, 2005. 3 W.J. Keegan, M.C. Green, Global Marketing, Pearson Prentice Hall, London, 2005, pp. 119. 4 S. Hollensen, Global Marketing; A Decision-Oriented Approach, Prentice Hall, Financial Times, 2004, pp. 194. 5 A. Pike, A. Rodriguez-Pose, J. Tomaney, Local and Regional Development, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2006, pp. 61122. 6 T. Buksiński, Współczesne filozofie polityki [Contemporary Philosophies of Politics]. Instytut Filozofii Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, Poznań, 2006, pp. 293-299. 7 More on that - see inter alia: M. Fujita, J.F. Thisse, Economics of agglomeration. Cities, industrial location, and regional growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002; C.J. Lopes Balsas, ‘City center revitalisation in Portugal’, Cittes, vol. 17, No. 1/2000, pp. 19-31.

Bibliography Buksiński T., Współczesne filozofie polityki [Contemporary Philosophies of Politics]. Instytut Filozofii Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, Poznań, 2006, pp. 293-299. Castells M., The Power of Identit, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1999.

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______________________________________________________________ Fujita M., Thisse J.F., Economics of agglomeration. Cities, industrial location, and regional growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. Geertz C., Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology, Basic Books, Parseus Books, 2000, Copyright for Polish Translation and Edition by Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków, 2005. Hollensen S., Global Marketing; A Decision-Oriented Approach, Prentice Hall, Financial Times, 2004, pp. 194. Keegan W.J., Green M.C., Global Marketing, Pearson Prentice Hall, London, 2005, pp. 119. Lopes Balsas C.J., ‘City center revitalisation in Portugal’, Cittes, vol. 17, No. 1/2000, pp. 19-31. Pike A., Rodriguez-Pose A., Tomaney J., Local and Regional Development, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2006, pp. 61122. Dariusz Waldzinski is Assistant-professor and Chair of Market Analysis and Marketing at the University of Warmia and Mazury, Poland. Eliza Chodkowska has a Masters degree in Management and is Chair of Macroeconomics at the University of Warmia and Mazury, Poland.

SECTION II RETHINKING CONFLICT

Adding Culture: Multicultural Problem Solving In Water Conflicts Boyd W. Fuller Abstract I argue that different and divided cultures with a society can live and solve problems together more effectively if they accept not-understanding each other as a basis for problem solving. While seeking understanding can help build trust and willingness to dialogue, accepting not-understanding based on fundamental differences allows for acknowledgement and pragmatic problem solving rather than the futile search for commonality. To solve problems together with not-understanding, the representatives of stakeholder communities first need to identify where their cultures are mismatched - e.g. where different processes are used to generate knowledge. Once those mismatches are identified, the next step is to negotiate together to create additional cultural elements such as language, processes, and objects representing realities that bridge mismatches among the different cultures. These allow the representatives of the different cultural communities to define problems and imagine solutions using their multiple cultural perspectives rather than seeking a unitary one. These additional, bridging cultural elements apply only at the location where stakeholders interact, and are grounded in the specifics of the problem. The findings of this paper emerged from the empirical analysis of two apparently irreconcilable conflicts over water among agricultural and environmental communities in the United States. Key Words: Culture, cultural conflict resolution, environmental conflict resolution, multiculturalism, value conflict. ***** 1.

Introduction We’ve pretty much come to the end of a time when you have a space that is ‘yours only’ – just for people you want to be there … we’ve finished with that kind of isolating. There is no hiding place. There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. It’s over. Give it up1.

I argue that different and divided cultures within a society can live together more effectively if they combine efforts to better understand each other with a healthy dose of pragmatic problem solving based on not

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______________________________________________________________ other with a healthy dose of pragmatic problem solving based on not understanding the other, where not-understanding is the acceptance that we will never fully understand the values and cultures of the other2. To do such problem solving without full understanding, interacting parties need to, somewhat ironically, create and negotiate additional cultural tools to bridge the differences among the parties. In other words, instead of seeking and using full understanding to enable rational and fully-theorised analysis, the parties engage in multiply-theorised process of problem solving using the additional cultural elements to bridge their different perspectives, norms, and processes. I discovered this process of multiply-theorised problem solving accidentally when studying mediated, consensus building processes conducted in the United States. These consensus building processes were convened because agricultural and environmental stakeholders had been engaged in a no-holds-barred, decades-long, value-based conflict over the management of water resources and preservation of environments. A close analysis of these conflicts revealed, unsurprisingly, that stakeholders’ disagreements were being driven by deep value differences. However, it also became clear that stakeholders had other ‘apparently irreconcilable’ differences that made their problem solving difficult. Different interpretations of words, different ways of generating credible knowledge, different objects and visions for representing the environment, all of these and more made it difficult for the parties to work together to convert wants, values, and problems into viable solutions. In fact, the parties were often unaware that they were talking about different problems. Furthermore, the stakeholders often did not realise the variety and degree of their differences. In focusing on their different positions and values, they missed their other culture-based differences. And this led to increased conflict because they expected to understand one another. They were all educated Americans after all, well-versed in the English language. This assumption often led to anger and hostility as each side misinterpreted what the other side was saying. This paper’s findings and the quotes herein are based on the author’s long-term study of intractable, long-term conflicts about water management in California and Florida, two states within the United States of America (USA)3. For the purposes of this paper, the conflicts can be described largely by their similarities, including the size of the water systems (a major portion of each state), the stakeholders involved, the general equality in power4 among stakeholders, and the length and resistance to resolution of the conflicts. In both cases the stakeholders had previously negotiated unsuccessfully with each other in another consensus building process. This raises an important issue. Dialogues and negotiations are not answers in

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______________________________________________________________ themselves. Processes aimed at relationship building and problem solving need to be set up and managed in the right manner, and I will argue here that such processes need to create the cultural tools to enable multiply-theorised problem solving. To analyse some of the challenges and opportunities when different cultures seek to cooperate, it is important to first define culture and multiculturalism, and then to set up a framework for analysing differences among cultures. I do this in the next section, after which I show how the two groups moved through these challenges to solutions. 2.

Defining Culture and Analysing Differences This paper works with two core understandings: one related to culture and one to multiculturalism. To start, I introduce Avruch’s definition of culture: Culture is a derivative of individual experience, something learned or created by individuals themselves or passed on to them socially by contemporaries or ancestors 5. In this sense, culture is not limited to ethnic or national groups. Instead, other groups can also share cultures, such as a group of engineers who practice and talk about safety factors and academics who use methodology as a means of generating and testing knowledge across disciplinary backgrounds. This definition allows us to look for cultural differences and mismatches across many different kinds of groups, including the agricultural and environmental communities discussed here. Second, I am less concerned with definitions of multiculturalism6 and their normative implications and more interested in how to make current multicultural societies function better in practice. Given the definition of culture I employ here and the multiple stakeholders involved (including engineers, biologists, managers, agriculture environmentalists, government officials, private sector, and so many others), the multiplicity of cultural attributes such as language, perspective, representations of the environment is almost guaranteed. Given that multiculturalism is present, I focus on how multiple stakeholders coming from different cultures in a multicultural society can, and do, work productively through their differences to find ways to solve problems. Building upon these two understandings, I am concerned about the challenges and opportunities that exist at the boundaries where representatives from different cultures meet and seek to solve problems or realise opportunities together. More specifically, I’m interested in negotiation, in large part because negotiations are about problem solving and

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______________________________________________________________ ‘equal enough’ power. Because no party has the ability to impose solutions, their representatives need to find ways of moving through and beyond their disagreements so that they can formulate solutions that all sides can support. 7 To move beyond their struggles, we need to better understand cultural differences. Instead of trying to develop a stable description of each group’s cultures and then compare them, I look at the mismatches that they eventually identified that occur when and where they meet. Such an approach does not require me to judge their particular culture; rather it is their own frustrations, miscommunications, deadlocks, and eventually discoveries that reveal the elements where their cultures diverge. This approach fits with Avruch’s more flexible definition of culture, with its acceptance that each side (and even each party) is embedded in multiple shared experiences, schema of understanding, and so on. The idea here is that when members of different cultures meet and try to do something together, they may share some common elements of culture (e.g. they are American) but differ in other elements (e.g. the meaning of particular words). The trick then is to find out which elements are making communication and cooperation difficult. This discovery was done mostly by the participants, with assistance from the mediators, as they learned together to identify where they were struggling and sought ways to overcome those barriers. I quote extensively from the participants as they explore their struggles and breakthroughs. From here, I use empirical examples from the interactions among agricultural and environmental stakeholders in California and Florida to show the mismatches as they occurred in practice. In the subsequent section, I will describe and analyse how the agricultural and environmental groups in the conflicts moved through those differences to find agreements. I start with three of the main mismatches that made negotiation and problem solving difficult: language, knowledge practices, and means of representing the world. 3.

Cultural Mismatches At first glance, the stakeholders disagreed about how much water agriculture could and should ‘save’. The environmentalists wanted agriculture to use less water so that more would remain in the rivers for downstream ecosystems. When agriculture insisted that they had rights to withdraw as much water as they did, the environmentalists would often accuse agriculture of ‘wasting’ water. Legally, if that claim was true, then the user can lose part of their allotment under their rights. However, farmers and water districts vehemently denied that they were wasting any water. However, many of the disagreements among the environmentalist and agricultural stakeholders were greatly exacerbated by their cultural mismatches. Both sides actually have some important common interests—

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______________________________________________________________ e.g. preserving farmland from urbanisation and agricultural sustainability over the long term—that were often lost because of the poor communication and mistrust among parties. To move forward, they needed to first identify the sources of their difficulties in communication, knowledge generation, and problem solving. The first mismatch between the agricultural and environmental groups was language. Stakeholder representatives had met many times in Florida and California. They had lobbied against each other in legislative halls, argued through the media, and debated positions in various public participation forums. They were all American, spoke English, were very familiar with the policy issues, and yet the stakeholders did not realise that each group defined the key terms very differently. A poignant example is described by one stakeholder as he talks about situation in which an environmental stakeholder was trying to reach out to the agricultural side. There was this [environmentalist] who said, ‘We support agriculture because they are green space. We want to preserve green space’. Well, you could just see the agriculture getting angry. He just didn’t understand. These were not some parks we were talking; these were our farms and livelihoods 8. Here we have an environmentalist is trying to reach out to the agriculture community by pointing out what he thought was a common interest stopping urbanisation - but his gesture backfired, largely due to the divergent interpretations that agricultural and environmental stakeholders had about farms and their role. For many agricultural stakeholders, farms were the products of hard work and experience. They required skilful management, they were productive, and they had purpose besides being seen by visitors who admired the greenery. They were not ‘parks’ for in-and-out tourists9. Other terms that stakeholders confused included ‘water use’, ‘efficiency’, and ‘waste’. These mismatches in meaning led not only to misunderstanding, but to hostile feelings based on the suspicions that the other side did not care enough to understand. As that feeling of irreconcilable differences and hostility grew, many lost their desire to listen or learn about the other. Instead, they resorted to adversarial tactics to advance their cause. This mismatch in language went beyond words and meaning. The styles that each group used in expressing themselves also caused problems, as an agency official describes the reaction of some agriculture stakeholders to the communication styles of others.

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______________________________________________________________ You can say something is ‘facile’ or it’s ‘egregious’ or something. You can use terminology that the Ag [agriculture] people are going to go ‘yuck’. They are not going to listen to you, it’s style. You don’t send people with a whole lot of polish to go out to talk with them; they will be turned off in the first place. …So that didn’t create a natural trust10. Sanders and Young have noted that minority groups in the United States often find it difficult to participate in deliberative forums because the style used for those deliberations favours the mainstream population11. For example, some find public deliberations too emotionless while others find it too brief and fact-focused. This was also the case in the agriculturalenvironmental interactions, with some favouring a more ‘polished’ style and others wanting straight talk. Another key mismatch between agricultural and environmental stakeholders was the style that each side followed to learn, test new ideas, and share and validate those new ideas together. An organic farmer who is sympathetic to both sides describes why agricultural stakeholders find it difficult to respect environmentalists’ knowledge. [T]o the farmer audience the urban environmentalists look like they sit behind the computer and try to play God all the time. …For the farmer, the working landscape is the ultimate. A place where people live and work and make a livelihood and sort of manage and even control that landscape. …I mean farmers have this great sense of entitlement partly because they are dealing with nature every day12. Agricultural stakeholders believe that to know their place—meaning, for example, the soil, weather, rainfall, crops, and how all those elements interact with management practices— one has to work there. Sitting at a computer or spending a weekend camping in pristine forests is not enough to understand the places where the agriculture community lives and works. To agricultural eyes, when environmentalists and agency staff ‘try to play God all the time’, they ignore what farmers know. The agriculture community tried other methods of helping their counterparts learn, including field tours. Farmers often visit each other’s fields to learn, and so they organised field tours for agency staff and environmentalists, based on the idea that learning occurs when hands get

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______________________________________________________________ dirty. Unfortunately, the results were decidedly mixed, as this next agricultural stakeholder describes next. Agriculture…felt that if they could just get the environmentalists walking around in the fields, kicking dirt clumps around, getting an understanding of how farms produce what they produce, they would finally understand what they are dealing with. And that was a hold up for a while, because the environmentalists felt like they weren’t going to learn anything by walking around and having a farmer whisper in their ear. Environmentalists have a different thrust to where they are going13. When it came to agriculture, many environmentalists and agency staff seemed uninterested in getting their hands dirty. Furthermore, even when they did visit the farms, they were not convinced by the evidence presented to them. In part, the agricultural stakeholder said this is because they have a ‘different thrust’, by which he meant that they were concerned with different aspects of, and relationships within, the environment depending on their own work, values, and ways of creating and validating knowledge. Computer models allowed some, for example, to consider agricultural water management over whole watersheds. In tying dispersed locations together, models rely on more abstract conceptions that do not speak to the farmers’ knowledge. Environmentalists do go to the fields at times to learn and show respect for agriculture’s wishes, but such trips are not convincing to them. These differences are not universal, of course. Agricultural stakeholders mustered science to bolster their claims and environmentalists had their own field knowledge from their visits to specific ecosystems and by driving through the region. However, the characterisations of these differences, perceived and actual, captures the challenges agricultural and environmental stakeholders faced when trying to consolidate what was ‘good’ knowledge. Lacking a common set of key words and concepts, styles of deliberation, and processes for generating knowledge, stakeholders not only found it difficult to communicate and build relations, but they also lacked a way of capturing the world whose problems they were trying to solve. There was no map, no model, no symbolic object, no pictures, or any other physical object that both sides could point to and say, ‘This represents what we are all talking about’. Instead, when presented with project documents, each side focused on winning by persuading the decision-makers (rather than each other) to adopt their way of portraying the problem and their ways of solving that problem. Each stakeholder was talking about a vital part of the system -

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______________________________________________________________ the environmentalists about the rivers and downstream ecosystems and the farmers about their water districts and the farms within - but they had no single representation of the world upon which they could identify problems and solutions. Summarising, the agricultural and environmental stakeholders in both Florida and California faced significant challenges in cooperating together and negotiating solutions to the problems they all faced, in large part because there were significant and multiple cultural mismatches at the boundary of their interaction. They interpreted key words and concepts differently, talked using different styles, generated and validated knowledge in contrasting ways, and lacked even a common representation of the world that they could use to pinpoint problems and imagine solutions. In the next section of the paper, I analyse the key breakthroughs that one group each in Florida and California made to overcome these mismatches. More specifically, I discuss how stakeholders participating in strategically managed consensus building processes in both states found ways of bridging the mismatches by generating ad hoc, boundary, language, processes, and representations of the systems in question. 4.

Adding Culture As mentioned above, the stakeholders in both states often did not realise that they were using the same key terms and concepts differently. The first breakthrough that each consensus building process made was to identify those gaps; the second was to find ways of bridging those differences. Consider, to start, the following words of a federal agency official that helped to convene one of the consensus building processes. [The facilitators] worked really hard to maintain some of the rules involving no ownership of ideas. That really becomes pervasive. Sometimes they synthesise [your idea] with stuff that other people have said, and this new direction starts to emerge. The group gets this feeling that they invented it- and they did, they honestly did… In some cases we literally invented new words, or new buzzwords I probably should say14. The parties in the consensus building processes were able to explore concerns and generate ideas and solutions by using a set of new or redefined words and concepts that they themselves created. This creative process included two specific interactions. The first was the negotiations among the stakeholders at the table as they sought to define words that would clearly express and capture their separate concerns concurrently. Second, the group members had

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______________________________________________________________ to constantly test the draft words and concepts with members of their communities, to make sure that the concepts would be legitimate once they were finalised. In this way, the definition of the words was always involved understanding and not understanding. Greater understanding was created in the consensus building groups as stakeholders learned more about each other’s concerns and tried to incorporate those into the new words and concepts. Not understanding was maintained because the vetting of the words always had to be done separately by both the agricultural and environmental communities. In other words, the new language elements had to make sense to the still semi-independent cultures of the agricultural and environmental communities. Given that the two communities still largely mistrusted each other, it was very important that there was ‘no ownership of ideas’ as the stakeholder mentions above. It was very important to the stakeholders that the process of defining the words and vetting them was done in such a way that each stakeholder could always see that the new words and concepts had been jointly defined. Other rules and habits were also important in terms of establishing a safe space and creating a style for the deliberation that all sides found acceptable. This next stakeholder provided insight into as he describes an incident where he acted contrary to the consensus building process’ norms. …I made a comment about aquifer storage and recovery… and my organisation’s position on that. And one of the Commissioners, who has since become a really close friend, stood up and he said [here the interviewee is imitating a passionate speech], ‘Mr. Chairman, I must object to the position that he has taken on this which is contrary to what we have all discussed’. He went on for some time and he was visibly upset, tight lipped. [Later,] I went over and sat next to him and said, ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? What did I do? Why are you this upset?’ And he could hardly look at me and he just said, ‘You’ve got a lot to learn’. …And it came down to, you know, if you’re going to be part of this Commission you need to work towards solutions - not just complain about something that’s wrong. That was the basis of it15. The stakeholders describing the incident had presented his organisation’s position, which was normal in other groups but contrary to the norms of this particular consensus building process. Instead, the group held the principle

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______________________________________________________________ that problems should come with proposed fixes, so that the discussion remained positive and solutions-focused. In this way, and others, each group developed its own particular methods of using the new words, analysing the problem, generating solutions, and undertaking the other actions they needed to complete to solve their problems. These new words, processes, and styles (norms and habits) were not enough, however. They still needed to have ways of representing the systems in question and imagining modifications to them. Here, objects played an important role. To understand more, listen to the words of this stakeholder from Florida as she talks about the computer model that her group used extensively to generate their solution. It’s easy to oversimplify modelling in such a way that you’re telling them you’re putting in ‘facts’ and getting ‘answers’. But that’s not what you’re doing. You put in assumptions and get an answer. [The modeller] was good at letting you get a sense, without dragging you into the part that people can’t understand, about what your assumptions are and the weaknesses of your assumptions, and how that will affect the outcome. And things that you might change for certainty, or whether it’s better to have more uncertainty and have a broader sense. ...Dealing with the black box of someone you might not necessarily trust and letting them put in the data and tell you what the answer is16. As the lay stakeholders got a better sense of how the model worked, and why the technical team used it the way they did, they became more willing to accept it as a valid way of representing the water management and ecosystems in question. This acceptance, or trust, given the acknowledged uncertainties, of the model had to be earned from each and every stakeholder group and this was done by allowing the stakeholders to look inside the model and test its ability to (a) link their concerns to the problem definition and (b) measure the solutions’ viability against measures they considered important (e.g. the salinity level in various ecosystems). As the efforts of the consensus building group advanced, many of the interactions between stakeholders and between the group and the supporting technical team revolved around colour-coded maps produced by the model. The experts would present the most recent results to the lay group who would then compare them to targets they had set based on their vision of sustainability. The lay group and technical team liaison would discuss the

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______________________________________________________________ discrepancies and then the lay group would give guidance on which corrections were most important for the next possible solution to address. This process of trial-and-error and interactive discussion was crucial for getting stakeholders to accept the eventual final solution even when it did not meet all of the group’s targets. The process allowed the group to test for itself what was possible and not possible, which in turn allowed the individual members to accept the final solution despite some of its shortcomings on certain issues important to them. Innes and Booher suggest that deliberating parties build, then evaluate and modify holistic solutions rather than make piece-by-piece, interest-based trades17. Rather than evaluate specific exchanges (e.g. ‘I’ll give you X if you give me Y’), stakeholders build, evaluate, and then negotiate modifications to ‘wholes’-e.g. ‘Now, that I see the entire draft agreement, I would like to propose a change to the following section’. As we shall see, the experience in the cases described here seems to support this proposition and point us towards the importance of various objects - such as spreadsheets, maps, and policy documents - as a means towards this process of building and evaluating solutions. The importance of these ‘boundary objects’ in such work is captured by a related body of literature on cooperation across knowledge disciplines. Carlile defines boundary objects as ‘artefacts that individuals work with - the numbers, blueprints, faxes, parts, tools, and machines that individuals create, measure, or manipulate’18. Boundary objects crossdisciplinary or cultural barriers - e.g. a computer-aided design tool that is used by both aesthetic and aerodynamic designers for car production. This was the case in the model described above, and with all the maps, spreadsheets, conceptual diagrams, and other objects produced by the groups and tested by the agricultural and environmental communities away from the table. 5.

Understanding and Not-Understanding I have used a few examples from real cases to show how stakeholders involved in a difficult conflict and coming from multiple cultures can create ad hoc, additional cultural elements - such as terms and concepts, rules and norms, and objects - that bridge the gaps where their cultures are mismatched. These bridging cultural elements are grounded in the specific context in which they were born - e.g. the computer model and how it represents a certain ecosystem and water management arrangement. A new interaction may require new terms and concepts, processes, and objects. These ad hoc, bridging cultural elements are not permanent fixes and they are not based on understanding alone. Remember that most of the community is not involved in the negotiations. No cultural element is replaced in the broader communities or at the table. In other words, the

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______________________________________________________________ differences among the cultures remain, but new elements are added where representatives are meeting and trying to solve problems. These additional cultural elements do not, thus, create permanent new understandings. Instead, they allow the multiple communities that still do not understand each other to cooperate and solve problems together. The different, added cultural elements allow for multiply-theorised problem solving because the elements used in problem solving are also multiplytheorised because each side processes and vets the information and ideas19. The implications are, when examined thoroughly, quite desirable. By accepting not understanding, we acknowledge the value of each and every culture. We can be other and yet still work, talk, and imagine together as a broader, multicultural community. By having the tools to enable problem solving among multiple cultures, we find that difference and co-existence can occur simultaneously. And these tools must be negotiated and created by the interacting actors and vetted and grounded concurrently and separately in each of the cultures.

Notes 1 B Reagon, 'Coalition Politics: Turning the Century', in Barbara Smith (ed.), Home girls: a Black Feminist Anthology, Kitchen Table- Women of Colour Press, New York, 1983. 2 Z Gurevitch, 'The Power of Not Understanding: The Meeting of Conflicting Identities'. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, vol. 25, 1989, pp. 161-73. 3 More information about the case studies can be found in two works by the author. B Fuller, Moving Through Value Conflict: Consensus Building and Trading Zones for Resolving Water Disputes, VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller E.K., Saarbruken, 2009. B Fuller, 'Surprising cooperation despite apparently irreconcilable differences: Agricultural water use efficiency and CALFED'. Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 12(6), October 2009, pp. 663-673. 4 Agricultural and environmental stakeholders in both conflicts were effective both at mobilising support, attacking the other parties, and in stopping or resisting policy efforts they did not like. 5 K Avruch, Culture & conflict resolution, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1998, pp. 5. 6 One definition of multiculturalism comes from Okin (1999) who describes it as the claim that ‘that minority cultures or ways of life are not sufficiently protected by the practice of ensuring the individual rights of their members, and as a consequence these should also be protected through special group rights or privileges’. S Okin, ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’, in Joshua Cohen et al. (eds.), Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1999.

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______________________________________________________________ 7

When a party does have the power to impose a solution, then interaction is coercion rather than negotiation. 8 Interview with stakeholder, Fall 2003. 9 White’s article provides much more detail on this disconnect. See R White, ‘‘Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?’: Work and Nature’. In W Cronon (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1995. 10 Interview with government agency staff, Fall 2003. 11 L Sanders, 'Against Deliberation'. Political Theory, vol. 25(3), June 1997, pp. 347-76. I M Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1990. I M Young, 'Activist Challenges To Deliberative Democracy', Political Theory, vol. 29(5), 2001, pp. 670-90. 12 Interview with organic farming representative, Fall 2004. 13 Interview with stakeholder, Fall 2004. 14 Interview with the federal agency official, Fall 2003. 15 Interview with stakeholder, Fall 2003. 16 Interview with stakeholder, Fall 2003. 17 J Innes and D Booher, 'Consensus Building as Role Playing and Bricolage: Towards a Theory of Collaborative Planning'. Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 65(1), 1999, pp. 9-26. 18 P Carlile, 'A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development'. Organization Science, vol. 13(4), July-August 2002, pg. 446. See also P Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997. 19 Sunstein also explores similar kinds of agreements, which he calls ‘incompletely theorised agreements’. See C Sunstein, 'Incompletely theorised agreements', Harvard Law Review vol. 108, 1995, pp. 1733-72.

Bibliography Avruch, K., Culture & conflict resolution. United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1998. Carlile, P., 'A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development'. Organization Science, vol. 13(4), July-August 2002, pg. 446. Fuller, B. Moving Through Value Conflict: Consensus Building and Trading Zones for Resolving Water Disputes. VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K., Saarbruken, 2009.

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______________________________________________________________ Fuller, B. 'Surprising cooperation despite apparently irreconcilable differences: Agricultural water use efficiency and CALFED'. Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 12(6), October 2009, pp. 663-673. Galison, P., Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997. Gurevitch, Z., 'The Power of Not Understanding: The Meeting of Conflicting Identities'. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, vol. 25, 1989, pp. 161-73. Innes, J., and Booher, D., 'Consensus Building as Role Playing and Bricolage: Towards a Theory of Collaborative Planning'. Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 65(1), 1999, pp. 9-26. Okin, S, ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’, in Joshua Cohen et al. (eds.), Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1999. Reagon, B., 'Coalition Politics: Turning the Century'. In Barbara Smith (ed.), Home girls: a Black Feminist Anthology, Kitchen Table- Women of Colour Press, New York, 1983. Sanders, L., 'Against Deliberation'. Political Theory, vol. 25(3), June 1997, pp. 347-76. Sunstein, C., 'Incompletely theorised agreements'. Harvard Law Review vol. 108, 1995, pp. 1733-72. White, R., ‘‘Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?’: Work and Nature’. In W Cronon (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1995. Young, I.M., Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1990. Young, I.M., 'Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy', Political Theory. vol. 29(5), 2001, pp. 670-90. Boyd W. Fuller is an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is interested in how people solve water and environmental problems together despite their differences, especially when those differences seem irreconcilable.

Dirt: A Social Mirror Meghna Haldar Abstract In 2008, I completed my documentary DIRT. This paper analyses the construction of real and mythic relationships in this film. It locates these relationships within the guiding framework of the documentary’s subject: how does dirt, a material object, become a signifier of otherness, marking the boundary between the cleanly ‘self’ and the dirty ‘other’? The film’s cyclical narrative has no central location. Rather like dirt, the film travels across cultures and differing perspectives, in defiance of normative systems of storytelling, eroding the unity of time, space and narratives. The film studies different systems in society and their relationship to each other - human beings and their environment, the city as a body, the body in relationship to the mind, the human connection to the sacred, class, belonging, and race. The film attempts to trace the continuum between clean and dirty, sacred and profane, civilisation and savagery using this metaphor of dirt. The paper will analyse five elements (participants/processes) and their relationship to each other within the film: the creation of the Goddess Durga and her eventual immersion in the holy Ganges; the toilet cleaner Pooja who works in the slums of New Delhi and the interweaving of her story with that of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, the resident artist of the NY Department of Sanitation; the sex worker Susan Davis and the filmmaker Meghna Haldar. These participants and processes have been ‘cut’ together in one film with the idea that perhaps systems of exclusion, seemingly arbitrary, are not exclusive to themselves. For example, New Delhi and New York are interchangeable in the way their mechanics of exclusion operate. The notion of disposabilityhuman or material- is central to the way we live and is not unique to any one cultural group or nation. Dirt, an ordinary particle that often defies easy definition, is an apt mirror that reflects human behaviour in society. Key Words: Belonging, dirt, filth, film, matter, metaphor, otherness, profane, sacred, sanitation. ***** 1.

The Goddess: The Sacred & the Profane The Goddess Durga is considered one of the most powerful female deities in all Hinduism. She is the female embodiment of energy or Shakti. The word ‘Durga’ means ‘the unattainable’. She was created out of the combined energies of the trinity to destroy the demon god Mahishasura. She

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______________________________________________________________ is said to live on Mount Kailash with her husband, Lord Shiva, he of the ashsmeared skin, dreadlocks and the destructive third eye. In Hindu mythology, Durga descends from her mountain abode every year with her children to visit her parents. Durga is both mother and daughter to the millions who welcome her home. Every autumn, this visit is commemorated in the festival of Durga Puja. In preparation, giant figurines of the Goddess are created out of clay, dirt and straw. The clay is usually procured from the banks of the Ganges. According to legend, rumour, or plain gossip, the first dirt used to create the Goddess comes from the doorstep of a prostitute’s house. Since men drop their virtues at her doorstep, this handful of dirt is supposed to be a collection of the finest male virtues. On the outskirts of Kolkata in India, lies the small artisan village of Kumartuli where clay potters, toil for six months in obscurity and poverty, to create these Goddesses that are then shipped all over the country. For the clay potters, creating these Goddesses (and others like Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh and Kartik) is an art form, handed down through generations. I visited Kumartuli in October 2005 as part of the research and development I was doing for my documentary Dirt. The film was still at a conceptual level but it seemed critical, even then, for me to return to the land of my forefathers to witness the creation ritual of our communal deity. As I subsequently wrote in the film, ‘Legend has it that the gods created us out of dirt and spit. If we were created in their image, we in turn created them in ours using dirt’1. Creating the Goddess requires great artistry, skill and endurance. To me, the potters’ dogged perseverance seemed like a creative act of faith. Thus I filmed at Kumartuli imagining that the sense of piety and reverence amongst the clay potters would be higher than the average person who attends the festival. Here is an excerpt from one encounter with a clay potter, S. Das. How can I bathe? When the season starts there is no time to bathe, no time to eat properly. The more the days pass, the more my disgust increases. Better to quit before it gets worse. I don’t believe in God. There’s nothing like God. People say you have to worship God. All these years of worshipping and what have I gained? Nothing. Where is God? You tell me2. Das has few remaining illusions about the nature of the divine or the purity of the River Ganges from where he draws his clay. He has sores on his hands from the river’s sewage and sludge. And yet he agrees that the Ganges

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______________________________________________________________ clay is exactly what is needed to create the idols. His skeletal and diseaseplagued body is poorly shod in stark contrast to the silks that will adorn the Goddess. But he has little time or the patience to notice the intimacy between the profane and the sacred in the creation of the Goddess. For him, it is an inhabited experience. His hands have become literal transmuters moulding the filthy clay into divine beings. Once the Goddess leaves the dark, airless work sheds, she is established in community centres across the city, state and country. Dressed and painted, she, her ‘children’3, and the demon god are raised to life through ‘pran prathishta’, which literally means ‘life establish’. This ritual of transmogrification from ‘clay to embodied spirit’ by the priest is essential for the festival to proceed 4. A long reed dipped in vermilion gives sight to the Goddesses’ unseeing eyes and for the next five days, the idols are treated as if they are very much alive. On the tenth day, the host community prepares for their departure. Amidst much pomp and ceremony, the idols are loaded into a convoy of trucks and then taken to the River Ganges. In Kolkata, which has the largest celebration of the festival in India, millions assemble on the banks of the Ganges to watch the departure of their divine Mother Goddess. Twenty to fifty strong men shoulder each idol and take them to the edge of the river. In the midst of ritual chanting, they are then pushed into the river. As she falls, the Goddess falls away from sacredness and becomes mere matter. It is a profound ritual that separates the Mother Goddess from her human connection, reducing her in one fell swoop to the level of abject dirt. In The Powers Of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Julia Kristeva defines the abject thus, ‘The abject has only one quality of the object: that of being opposed to I’5. Later in the essay, she notes the intersection between religion and abjection: ‘The various means of purifying the abject—the various catharses—make up the history of religions, and end up with that catharsis par excellence called art, both on the far and near side of religion’6. Kristeva’s comments resonate with me on various levels. The worship of the Goddess can be read as an elaborate and artistic public performance which performs several functions. First, the performance sanctifies the abject female idol created from dirt and clay which is then ‘given’ life and motherhood. But the abject is also the worshipper, who imagines her, beseeches her and ultimately destroys her7. Second, the festival allows for a socially ordained (and supervised) disruption of order, a catharsis of social rules, where the divine and the human meet on the same plane, rich and poor eat the same food seated at the same table, and men and women interact openly. While strict caste rules still guide who can cook the holy food for the Goddess, the festival provides one of the few occasions where people do interact freely, irrespective of caste, gender and class. During the immersion of the holy

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______________________________________________________________ mother, the boundaries between the sacred and profane, object and abject, begin to collapse. The threat of abjection that has shadowed the Goddess from her humble beginnings (as dirty clay) finally becomes reality. These distinctions between the abject and the divine, and the abject-divine and human will only be reasserted after the Goddess has been submerged. The next day, even as the Goddesses continue their slow dissolve into the river, divers will try to salvage the giant bamboo frames and sell these back to clay potters of Kumartuli. What would happen if the Goddesses were not submerged? There are thousands of artisans who depend on the annual festival for their primary source of income. It would also hugely disrupt the normative social order. The presence of the divine in human midst would require that they be provided daily care and attention. Other caste and gender norms would be thrown into disarray. It is vital to the fabric of that society that the Goddess be eliminated so that the prevailing patriarchal order can be restored. Once she has performed her societal function, the Goddess is merely matter out of place. 2.

Matter Out of Place In 2001, I was in Texas, awaiting my Canadian immigration papers, skirting the boundaries of what it meant to be a legal non-resident alien in post 9-11 America. I was leery of the jittery wave of violence that followed the attack on the World Trade Centre8. America had launched a ‘war on terror’9. What I felt, but did not have the language to conceptualise or articulate at that point, was that I and others like me had become ‘matter out of place’. Our legal status in the country, for the most part, remained the same. We were the same ‘matter’ as we were on September 10th, 2001. It was the place that had changed and along with it, the perceptions of what it meant to be non resident, foreigner or outsider. Context seemed to be all in determining our rapidly shrinking value. We were not inherently ‘other’, nor inherently ‘dirty’. We were, in that time and place, just violating the collective sense of order that defined America to mainstream Americans. In the introduction to her seminal book Purity and Danger, the British anthropologist Mary Douglas found that, ‘I...discovered in myself a prejudice against piecemeal explanations. I count as piecemeal any explanations of ritual pollutions which are limited to one kind of dirt or one kind of context’10. Douglas’ working definition of dirt as primarily ‘matter out of place’ has often been the starting point to understand the nature and function of phenomena such as dirt, filth, disgust and rubbish11. She suggested that the presence of dirt was indicative of a larger framework of rules and regulations12. Like a bug in any system, dirt confirms the presence of a system while contravening its existence.

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______________________________________________________________ When I first embarked on the idea of making a film on the subject of dirt in 2001, Mary Douglas was far from my mind. The film was borne out of a feeling of disposability and a sense of un-belonging. Yet I found in myself as rigid a prejudice against piecemeal explanations of dirt as Mary Douglas. Dirt has many meanings, so many faces. In nature, it can mean soil, earth, crud, waste, vomit, faeces, and matter. Dirt in social and environmental contexts can signify trash, garbage, filth, clutter, decay, death, difference, and outsider. Dirt is material, matter, and an apt metaphor to describe hierarchy of class status, race and gender. Dirt at other times is a feeling, cutting across class, race, and gender lines. How could I ever think that any piece meal explanation about one kind of dirt in one kind of context would suffice? In his book Rubbish Theory: Creation and Destruction of Value, Michael Thompson talked about objects having two values: durable or transient. Durable objects, in his estimate, have a higher value than transient objects because they are reusable. Transient objects, over time, slowly lose their value, and are designated as rubbish. However these objects are capable of being of being reevaluated. Once reinstated in value, the transient object becomes durable. Thompson’s work centres on the economic value of objects13. However, since his theory focuses on household objects, it tends to ignore objects that might truly stand no chance of reinstatement in the marketplace. But Thompson does offer a way to understand rubbish and garbage in terms of value and reuse. William Cohen writes about Thompson’s theory, ‘Here is the economic fascination of filth: that reserves of value might be hidden precisely in matter that seems most worthless’14. What does this have to do with the documentary? Structure is the most crucial element to the construction of a documentary – how to piece together the fragments of reality that have been collected to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Thompson’s theory suggested a nonlinear, circular framework to think about dirt, both as material and as metaphor. Two, it offered me a way to understand the slow transition from material to metaphor. Although some things can be universally disgusting, is anything inherently dirty? Or is it always contextual? And even if it was inherently dirty, did it always remain dirty? What role did the passage of time play in understanding a transformation of value? All life is transient and changes value over time. What we extrude from our bodies- vomit, shit, spit, urine, blood, dandruff- is considered dirty because it seems useless in value. It is a stark reminder of our corporeality15. But this waste has value, but only if we choose to see it as such. For example, chemically treated human sewage can be used as compost or to generate natural methane gas. Human corpses add value to the soil in which it rests. That dirt, populated as it is by bacteria,

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______________________________________________________________ amoeba, mites and nematodes, is the stuff of life. It has value in itself and is critical in sustaining the complex soil web. On the level of metaphor, there are those amongst us who are considered ‘dirty’, ‘filthy’, useless ‘trash’. But even those who are marginalised in one system or considered disposable are not marginalised everywhere. They have value in their personal lives, in their social networks or in the service they provide the very society that might deem them as disposable. In so many ways, the shape shifting, time altering nature of dirt serves as a valuable grid for a cross-cultural study. By placing dirt at the centre, rather than at the margins, of all human activity, I wondered if I could understand issues of identity, belonging, otherness and group dynamics better. If dirt was a mirror to the world I inhabited, what would I see? 3.

Making Dirt: A Transcultural Montage Meghna : Dirty. Who do you think is dirty? Puja Haldar : People down the road. Meghna : Who? Who down the road? Anila Bhaduri : The walking millions. Puja Haldar : The walking millions16.

As a filmmaker, I found it difficult to illustrate in-visible concepts such as ‘class’ and ‘system’. Who is part of the system that creates this need for order? How does one show the existence of class in a film, much less demonstrate how it plays out in different societies? I found solutions to my problems through a happy accident. I decided to talk to my relatives. My conversations with my mother Puja Haldar and my aunt Anila Bhaduri are a motif through the film. If there is any central location in this film, it is the middle-class living room of my family in New Delhi. This is where I return to check my prejudices, and to learn how I acquired them. It is where the filmmaker is both a subject and an object. And it is here that the conflict of otherness, identity and belonging manifests itself in me as a person and as a filmmaker. Puja Haldar and Anila Bhaduri discuss the presence of slums in the city of New Delhi and how the smell of urine disrupts their morning walks. My mother and my aunt are the archetypal ‘everyman’ of the film, unapologetic representatives of the middle class establishment who have very clear ideas about their sense of ownership in the system. These two participants form the link between the disparate worlds of New York, Vancouver and New Delhi with their middle class values, values that were also the fertile birthing ground for the prejudices that I carry into the world. The film which begins with my own sense of unbelonging in the West after 9-11 returns full circle when my mother and aunt state quite categorically that

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______________________________________________________________ the choice to be ‘other’ for me in the West is just that - a choice. I could return to the world where I would belong more easily, where my race identity would not set me apart, where my class would cocoon me from people lower, lesser, or perhaps simply radically ‘other’. Why is my own subjectivity relevant to the task of filming? Simply put, the filmmaker does not occupy a value-neutral position. The investigation of cultural and social practices and rituals that create meaning and value are affected by my social position and that I am framing the debate for all the participants. The power balance shifts according to the nature of my relationship with each of the participants. The value and authenticity of each exchange is also influenced by our relative positions. The shifting nature of this balance is made possible by the fact that my persona in the film is primarily that of an immigrant to the West, a whole that is not entirely a sum of its constituent parts. I am Indian, Indo-Canadian, and Canadian. Even Texan. And none of it. All of it17. Some of the belonging is only in memory. Some of it is in daily ritual and practice. What does being Indian mean when I visit India every few years and collect experiences like stamps? What does being Canadian mean when I have yet to memorise the provinces of the country and frequently get confused between the American national anthem and the Canadian? As a filmmaker, I occupy a performative space that yokes together dissimilar and contradictory worlds within the film. It is a fluid space that allows me to assume roles – ‘daughter’, ‘immigrant’, ‘middle class, western educated filmmaker’, ‘leftist intellectual’, ‘ignoramus’, ‘shit-disturber’, and most authentically ‘outsider’. It is also a privileged position that allows me to juxtapose different realities from these worlds to create synergistic meanings. This performative space reinforces a central technique in the film which is the use of montage to juxtapose different worlds (mythical, material and metaphorical) beside each other. ‘Montage’ comes from the French word ‘monter’ meaning ‘to assemble’. Thus Dirt cumulates into a transcultural montage, yoking together seemingly disparate, even contrary worlds, in order to create a meaning that is not exclusive to any of these worlds, and liminal to all. 4.

The Sanitation Artist, the Sex Worker & the Cleaner: Performance Spaces When we spend so much time accumulating objects, then when our desire for the object wanes and we’re trained in our culture for our desire to wane very quickly so we’ll buy more, more, more, more and more. When our desire wanes, we throw it away. In the act of throwing it away, we strip the identity of the object and we mingle

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______________________________________________________________ completely different things together hard, soft, wet, dry, steel, ice cream, hair. It all gets one name: garbage18. In 1979, Meirle Laderman Ukeles launched a public art series ‘Touch Sanitation’ which involved, amongst other things, the artist shaking hands with more than 8500 sanitation workers of the New York Sanitation Department and saying ‘Thank you for keeping New York City Alive’. The performance lasted 11 months. In the film, Ukeles explains the context of that art thus: You had this stigma of maintenance work where people felt invisible. This stigma of being connected to the garbage where people who didn’t want to deal with their garbage and here’s this handy person, who takes away their garbage. So you project on to them, ‘Oh it’s them - it’s their garbage’19. Through her art, she was making visible the ‘san-man’s’ contribution to society and acknowledging the relationship between the creators of the garbage and the people who took care of the disposal. Both were participants in the system. But Ukeles was also separating the humanity of the individuals who dealt with garbage from the identity of the garbage itself. Ukeles is a maintenance artist. In 1969, she wrote the highly influential manifesto ‘Maintenance Art - Proposal for an Exhibition’ where she argued that the general housework, child rearing, maintenance work that women did around the house was an art form worthy of respect and honour. As she told me with pointed wit, ‘Once I had a baby and there I was changing the baby’s diaper, I realised that Uncle Jackson (Pollock) and Grandfather Marcel (Duchamp) and Uncle Mark (Rothko) did not change diapers. And I fell out of their world’20. Her art and philosophy was propelled by this outrage at having her own life and work devalued because of its gendered nature. Famous male artists did not change diapers. How could diaper changing be considered art? In art circles, she was now matter out of place. Through this process of un-belonging, Ukeles came to define her artistic credo. Through the years, her work shifted from a private domestic stage to large public spheres. ‘I Make Maintenance Art Every Day’ (1976) had her scrubbing floors in a Manhattan building with cleaners during regular shifts. ‘Social Mirror’ (1983) was a large sanitation truck emblasoned with mirror pieces so that the community became implicated in the contents of the truck. With these art works, she transformed the locale of performance from

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______________________________________________________________ designated art spaces to ordinary, even overlooked, spaces. Her fellow performers were not just those whose jobs were to merely maintain, scrub, and clean. In this case, it included the spectators who would see their faces reflected in the mirror of the garbage truck, and those who would walk on the surfaces that the ‘others’ maintained. In a slum in New Delhi, Pooja Singh earns a living doing the lowly maintenance work that Ukeles depicts in her maintenance art. Her husband had been recently dismissed from his job because he had been caught thieving. In the film, she describes an incident where she and her sister-inlaw visited the train tracks to defecate. They were too busy chatting to notice that a train was approaching. Both were hit by the train. Singh’s sister-in-law died and she stayed in the hospital for nine months. Singh is stoic about the incident and the large scar she bears on her forehead. Now Pooja works as a sanitation cleaner, cleaning public toilets for a living. Although she is the breadwinner of the family, her occupation is a well-kept secret. Pooja explains: Everyone knows that I come from a respectable family. The world uses public toilets. What a disgrace it would be to my family if someone saw me cleaning public toilets. The world shits on it, it’s filthy and I have to clean it. It’s humiliating21. For Singh, this work was necessary to her survival while rendering her invisible. And yet they also entailed a necessary performance wherein she ‘dressed’ for work every day so that she could enact her socially prescribed role in public. She struggled to separate her own identity from the dirty spaces that she cleaned, from the faeces that she washed off. Over and over again, she reiterated to me that she belonged to an upper caste family and had married beneath her. Her choices, made out of love, had necessitated the circumstances of her work. Worlds and cultures apart, Singh and Ukeles meet in the shared space of a film where one’s life is mirrored in the other’s art-work. The language that they use to describe the world of the sanitation cleaner is similar - hectoring, impersonal and abrasive. Set beside each other, the cities of New York and New Delhi, dissimilar in ways, seem interchangeable in the way their mechanics of exclusion and disposability operate. When Ukeles speaks, and viewers see Singh working, it is understood that the place and time have been rendered marginal for the time being. Placed within the context of dirt and human disposability, even seemingly dissimilar systems, with different notions of cultural and social hierarchy, can display identical strains.

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______________________________________________________________ Pooja Singh’s world interacts with other disparate worlds through the film. There is a scene where Pooja is getting ready to go to work. Shots of her combing her hair, putting makeup and lipstick are intercut with that of Susan Davis, a sex worker in Vancouver. Davis is also getting ready for her day ‘preparing a face’ to meet her clients. Both Singh and Davis, geographically and culturally disparate, are deemed dirty because of the service that they provide even by those who need their services. Their value is invisible even to their clients, not because of their inherent nature, but because the proximity of something that is devalued in the system in which they participate. In the film, Susan Davis describes some of her clients thus: Some of those guys when they come in here they don’t want me to touch them. They want to put the condom on themselves. They are so terrified that they will catch HIV just by being in the room with me. It’s unbelievable and it makes me extremely angry to think you know I’m too dirty to touch. I’m too disease ridden to come close to you in order for me to perform the service that you’re asking me to perform. It’s, it’s such a contradictory thing. Here I am as a consumer of, of sex with you you dirty whore, you know22. From Davis’ words, it seems that sex as material exchange is a shameful, disease-ridden and profane exercise, even in advanced capitalist, materialistic societies like Canada. David L. Pike in his essay, Sewage Treatments: Vertical Space and Waste in Nineteenth Century Paris and London explains, Because the prostitute employs as exchange value what capitalist ideology tell us is reserved for use value - her body as sexual organ- she makes palpable the inherent contradictions in the conventional divisions between public and private, business and leisure, exterior and interior23. Two things emerge from this blurring of boundaries. One, she is a defiant embodiment of the contradictions in the system. Two, by being perceived as the receptacle of sexual ‘waste’, she bears the shame and ridicule attached to the abject act. Her customers are defined by what she is/is not24. Ukeles, the maintenance artist, says that when value is not attached to material (acts), there is the ‘permission to degrade’ not just the ‘garbage’ but

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______________________________________________________________ those human beings who are associated with that which is considered disposable. It is interesting that both women allowed themselves to be filmed. Singh spoke bluntly of her marriage and her work in front of her children although she had told me earlier that they did not know what she did for a living. The act of filming seemed to allow her a way of ‘coming out’ to her children, of becoming known truly by them. Davis later asked to use the shots we’d taken of her in the film to advertise her own professional services in the community. If the documentary was mining their lives in order to give meaning to an abstract concept, both these participants used this opportunity to position their roles, not just to an imaginary audience, but to their immediate families and clientele. The filming seemed to allow space for a bartering of value. They offered me insight into their lives, and in return, found a medium through which they could communicate openly without fear of ridicule and humiliation. The temporary artifice of the film shoot allowed for a disruption in the established order of their lives such that they could speak about their work and lives without shame. I wanted to create a film with a multiplicity of perspectives and contexts, to provide a space where conflicting and parallel narratives could co-exist, where individual locations were only the starting point to find that which is similar, shared and universal to the human experience. It seemed natural to most people that I would be filming Dirt in India. Dirt and India somehow seemed synonymous. It made people in New York, Austin, Vancouver, New Delhi and Kolkata nervous when I said I was filming a documentary about dirt in their city. It made them defensive. Dirt was always somewhere else, outside, other. Not in their backyard. Not them. Never them. In the end, what we learn of systemic social, sexual, class and gender mores from the perspective of filth is acutely revealing. What we lack in intimacy to the system is compensated for by the outsider’s insight. From the hidden and repressed angle of that which is filthy, all systems lie naked, exposed, their guts revealed. It is through the real or imagined ‘other’ that we know ourselves.

Notes 1

M Haldar, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. S Das, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. 3 The Goddess Durga has four children: Saraswati, or the Goddess of Learning and Creative Arts, Lakshmi, or the Goddess of Wealth and Fertility, Kartik, The God of War, and Ganesh, the elephant-headed Remover of 2

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______________________________________________________________ Obstacles and God of Knowledge. Behind Ganesh stands his demure wife, Kola Bau, or the Plantain Tree dressed in her simple red-bordered sari. 4 Deities installed in temples are usually made of stone or metal and seem to have a more permanent life. Idols made of clay, by their very nature, signify an impermanence and temporality. 5 J Kristeva, ‘Approaching Abjection’, in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 1. 6 J Kristeva, ‘Approaching Abjection’, in The Continental Aesthetics Reader, C. Cazeaux (ed.) Routledge, 2000, pp. 552. 7 Kristeva has suggested that the first experience of abjection is when we first separate from the mother, the point at which we know ourselves as separate. See Kristeva, J., ‘Approaching Abjection’, in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 6. 8 D Eck, Morning Prayers, in The Memorial Church, Pluralism Project, Harvard University 1997-2009, viewed on July 22nd 2009, http://pluralism.org/about/morning_prayers.php. Diana L. Eck is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University. She delivered this talk on the American character and faith at the Memorial Church in November 2001. It is a fairly detailed accounting of the acts of individual violence against people who had nothing in common, except that they all seemed to conform to the general idea of ‘outsider/foreigner/other’. “They were directed against people who seemed ‘different’, people of many religious traditions. A brick wrapped with messages of hatred shattered the windows of an Islamic bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia; a furious man drove his car through the plate glass doors of the elegant mosque in Cleveland; someone fired a rifle and pierced the stained glass dome of the mosque in Toledo, and a firebomb landed in the mosque in Denton, Texas. Sikhs were targeted because of their turbans; there were dozens of incidents - a Sikh attacked with a baseball bat, a Sikh shot with a paint-ball gun, a Sikh hauled off an Amtrak train in Providence, handcuffed, and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, his ceremonial kirpan. Hindus also experienced a new wave of suspicion: a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago and another in New Jersey were vandalized. And there were murders too, adding to the Sept. 11 death toll: Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh shot in his gas station/convenience store in Mesa, Arizona; Wakar Hassan Choudhry, a Pakistani Muslim killed in his store in Pleasant Grove, Texas; Adel Karas, a Coptic Christian who had fled Egypt twenty years ago, shot in his shop in San Gabriel, California”. 9 W Safire, Safire’s Political Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 790-791.

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______________________________________________________________ George W. Bush in his State of the Union, September 2001 announced that, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there”. As Safire points out, “Terror is not so much an enemy as a tactic”. The danger of course is not merely that it is an “inapposite pairing of nouns” or that the US can declare war on a noun, if it so desires but more significantly, for our purposes, that the inexact phrasing makes it difficult to define who the enemy is. 10 M Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984, pp. vii 11 W A Cohen & R Johnson, (eds) Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, University of Minnesota Press, 2005. For those interested in undertaking a further study of this subject, Filth offers an authoritative series of essays on the subject. Set in Britain and France in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the essays deal with sewage systems, Victorian literature, the impact of colonization and a variety of other fascinating discourses on filth. 12 “Dirt is essentially disorder”. M Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984, pp. 2. 13 M Thompson, Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 25-26. 14 W Cohen, ‘Introduction: Locating Filth’, in Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, W. Cohen & R. Johnson, (eds), University of Minnesota Press, 2005 William A Cohen, Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, pp. xv. 15 J Kristeva, ‘Approaching Abjection’, in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 3-4. “These body fluids, this defilement, this shit is what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death”. 16 M Haldar, A Bhaduri & P Haldar, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. 17 J Kristeva, ‘Approaching Abjection’, in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982, p 8. “For the space that engrosses the deject, the excluded, is never one, nor homogeneous, nor totalizable, but essentially divisible, foldable and catastrophic....The more he strays, the more he is saved”. Kristeva’s essay in describing the position of the exile as abject is a useful tool for me to understand my own seeming lack of location in the film. 18 M L Ukeles, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. 19 M L Ukeles, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. To get a more complete sense of the Ukeles art work, read Morgan, R., ‘The

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______________________________________________________________ Touch Sanitation: Mierle Laderman Ukeles‘, in Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena An Anthology from High Performance Magazine 1978-1998, Vol. 1, Linda Frye Burnham & Steven Durland (eds.), Critical Press, 1998. 20 Ibid 21 P Singh, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008 22 S Davis, Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008 23 D.L Pike, Sewage Treatments: Vertical Space and Waste in NineteenthCentury Paris and London, in Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, W. Cohen & R. Johnson, (eds), University of Minnesota Press, 2005 William A Cohen, Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, pp. 54. 24 In the documentary, William Cohen explains how ‘othering’ functions very simply, “So if you can call someone else “dirty”, you can say they are not me. I’m not like them. They look different from me. They sound different from me. They smell different from me. And therefore they’re dirty and I’m clean”. He says this right after we have seen three Caucasian pre-teen kids talk about their classmate “Antone” who they think is “dirty” and “smelly” and is their “worst enemy”. I believe that his explanation holds as true for the client who thinks of a sex worker as the dirty receptacle for his base desires as it does for children who vilify their playground enemy. I always wanted to ask the children if he was their enemy because he was dirty and smelly or did he become dirty and smelly because he was their enemy. At any rate, what it says about the innate ‘othering’ mechanisms in human beings, as young as eight or nine, is rather chilling.

Bibliography Cohen, W.A, ‘Introduction: Locating Filth’, in Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, Cohen & Johnson, W.A & R., (eds), University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Dirt, Meghna Haldar, National Film Board of Canada, 2008. Douglas, M., Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984. Eck, D., Morning Prayers, in The Memorial Church, Pluralism Project, Harvard University, 1997-2009, viewed on July 22, 2009, http://pluralism.org/about/morning_prayers.php.

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______________________________________________________________ Kristeva, J., ‘Approaching Abjection’, in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982. _______

, ‘Approaching Abjection’, in The Continental Aesthetics Reader, Cazeaux, C. (ed.), Routledge, 2000. Pike, D.L., ‘Sewage Treatments: Vertical Space and Waste in NineteenthCentury Paris and London’, in Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, W. Cohen & R. Johnson, (eds), University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Safire, W., Safire’s Political Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 790-791. Thompson, M., Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 25-26. Meghna Haldar is a freelance filmmaker based in Vancouver, Canada. Her feature documentary Dirt has won multiple awards and can be purchased online at www.nfb.ca/dirt.

The Invention of Gesture in the Lack of Words Tina Rahimy Abstract In his ‘Notes on Gesture’ Agamben states: ‘In the cinema, a society that has lost its gestures tries at once to reclaim what it has lost and to record its loss’1. In his further analysis, which is highly inspired by the Deleuzian notion of cinema, he claims that the image is no longer fixated but rather in the ‘society of the spectacle’ it is always embedded in a world of images. The image is always a reference. The permanence of this relationality is however more than an aesthetic factuality. It rather ‘belongs essentially to the realm of ethics and politics’2. In this paper I will elaborate on the experience of the diasporas and their loss of gesture. Migration causes a form of aphasia as a result of which the subject becomes incapable of adequately connecting words to images. This incapability, however, opens room for another gesturality, or rather breaks through the dominant discourses of the image. By analysing the rhizomatic movement of refugee’s artworks in cinema and visual media, I want to elaborate on the political relevance of these specific aesthetic acts. Along with Deleuze we could claim that these acts are inventive in their creation of concepts but also the result of the necessity of re-acting to an event. The refugee is then innovative in his unavoidable urge to express himself. Is the creation of visual images then, in this sense, not a tool par excellence to reveal an experience, the experience of the migration that is been gained in-between languages? What is the ethico-political meaning of a life that has neither reference to the mother tongue nor to the language of the refugium? What is the expression of the experience in its loss of the common words? Key Words: Agamben, art, cinema, Deleuze, identity, life, politics, refugee. ***** 1.

Moving Life In this paper I would like to present a fragment of my ongoing PhD project called The Voices of Diaspora, in which I research, broadly speaking, the relation between arts, philosophy and refugees. This, as one might suspect, can be labelled under the category of politics. In this essay I will focus on the specific role of the cinema as a practice of art wherein refugees express themselves. I will illustrate this by an analysis of a particular film. However in order to understand refugees urge to express himself, one must understand his urge to survive. Survival in order to stay alive, in order to be able to live. Life is the essence of flight, its motor as well as well as its

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______________________________________________________________ motive. For that reason I am obliged to start with a statement on the manner in which I define life. Life escapes the banality of human clarification. Its non-essence as pure movement cannot be defined. And what generally is defined as birth and death, as beginning and an end, is meaningless for life itself, because life has neither beginning nor an end. It is the middle, existing in contact and relation, bouncing of forces. There are forces at work, but we reduce ourselves to identities: those beings that slow down every form of becoming and in doing so betray the process of differentiation. Is it fear that makes us human, fear of pure and constant transition? Is this fear disloyal to life? Life that is indifferent to its matter and form. Loyalty to life means that we are equal to dogs, plants, flowers, trees, bugs, and mosquitoes. This is not some kind of a hip Hollywood New Age pleading, and if it is, then it would mean that two of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and along with them Giorgio Agamben, are nothing more than a vogue phenomenon. What, in Western societies, is arrogantly called New Age, is in fact maybe as old as humanity itself, and for a long time has been present in Buddhism, Hinduism, Mysticism and many other forms. Within these perceptions life is a pure movement, a pure line of flight, movement without stops. Relation without relata. Making the relata identities is nothing more than institutionalising a hierarchy wherein humanity identifies itself once more as the ruler of the world, as the centre of all that there is and not as a singular line within singularities. But becoming non-human is maybe too many steps at the moment. Too far ahead. Even the thought of it terrifies me, without even knowing exactly why. So let’s stay human for a while. But even within this humanity we are not free to be. Even within the safe boundaries of being human we are defined in hierarchical categories of citizens and non-citizens, women and men, children and elderly. Also within the room of science we are defined by categories as Continental and Anglo-Saxon philosophy, beta and alpha science, and by other scientific boundaries, such as theory and practice. Every day new expertises arise, isolating themselves even more from one another. But also abstract reflection and affective artistic expression are usually distinguished in such a way that they can never meet in one practise. Deleuze, however, by defining philosophy as the art of creating concepts3, is indifferent towards the categories from which creativity springs. Deleuze’s philosophy is not merely critical, but rather, inspired by Nietzsche, focuses on relationality and affirmation. This affirmative approach also characterises his attitude towards art. Deleuze’s philosophical work, how abstract it may seem, is not a theory but an actualisation of the content of his thought within its form, and the relation as form is been realised in its content. His reflections on Beckett, Kafka, Proust and Bacon are not a

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______________________________________________________________ representation of his philosophy that is been practised within those artworks but rather a journey through these artworks wherein new concepts for thought are presented within the practise of art. The connection between art and philosophy is valuable to consider for my research on the affirmative approach of the actual and political practice of flight. By connecting philosophy, art and politics I would attempt to elaborate on the concepts within artworks of refugees that politically and philosophically are of significance. At the same time I want to argue that these concepts can only be perceived within the practise of art. Becoming a refugee is an experience of transition and differentiation. Different aspects of this multiple experience are expressed through different forms of enunciation. Art is in this sense not one of the ways in which this experience of flight could be articulated as a replacement or representation of another true form of articulation. But rather what art could express becomes actuality within the openness of the practise of art. I will even argue that different forms of art could only articulate specific aspects of this or any other experience. So for example painting cannot replace that which is been expressed in literature. This is not an attempt to value one practise above the other, but rather valuing every practise in its singularity. Every art form affects our senses, but in a manner, each different art carries with it different intensities. Here I will focus on the art of cinema as a form of enunciation. What is unique about the cinematic image to enunciate the political and philosophical world of refugees? Deleuze has been one of the few philosophers, especially in his time, to consider the specific value of cinema as a form of art and also its relation to philosophy. His two books on cinema4 are a philosophical journey through the conceptualisations that belong to the domain of this art form. Deleuze becomes even more relevant for my research when he argues that cinema is not another form of language. He explicitly differentiates the linguistic enunciation from that of the image. Cinema becomes in this sense for the refugee a form of practice wherein the non-linguistic aspect of the experience of flight becomes sensible; the part without words can become ‘visible’. I find Deleuze’s analyses of cinema particularly useful in analysing Parisa Yousef Doust’s film Nahid=Venus5, especially considering the way in which this refugee filmmaker alters patterns of thought. Parisa6 is an Iranian/Dutch filmmaker who fled from Iran at an early age. While I will not be able to replace the images by words, these images affect my reflections and my process of conceptualisation in philosophy. At the end of my paper I compare these reflections with Agamben’s concept of gesturality: how these images have become gestures and why these gestures are political.

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______________________________________________________________ 2.

The Faceless Face Nahid=Venus is about Parisa’s aunt Nahid. Because of her political activities Nahid, which means Venus, has been imprisoned by the Iranian government. After several years she is released from prison, but the old Nahid, or the Nahid that was known to her relatives, seems to be gone forever. Because of her mental absentness Nahid leaves the prison only to be locked in an asylum. Nahid is captured in an everlasting numbing shock, her words do not communicate and her face is absently present. In other words, she has become a pure gaze without words. The filmmaker seems to be in search of a coherent story, in search of an aunt that she remembers so well. So when the aunt seems to be unable to tell the tale, Parisa turns to the rest of the family, uncles and aunts, and also to her mother, who is the sister of Nahid. But even the family members are not capable or prepared to reveal her story in words. Instead they speak of life in general, philosophy and spirituality. This film is not a narration with a beginning and an end, but rather a movement-image lacking a story. Although the frames are put in an order, there is no logical linearity. The images fool the viewer, they seem to give a clear picture, but the images are mirrored and uncertain. The half empty shelves in the room, which are only visible in the mirror, declare the unavoidability of transition. The mirror does not represent reality, which is shown in the metaphor of reflection. The mirror is not a representation, but an actuality; it is a reality of perception (simulacrum). It is the reality of a rupture in the whole, and at the same time presenting this whole as it is. There is no home; every place is decorated partially as if its inhabitant already expects her departure. We see an empty bed, but this does neither represent the beginning of life nor the end of it. This so called life has rather lost her way of living, or better said Nahid is lifeless, motionless within the movement of the camera. She has neither lust nor desire. And the sentence ‘my aunt Nahid lives in a psychiatric clinic’ only confirms the suspicion that the mind has lost its way as well. In intermezzi the song of a woman shows the rupture, as it affects the senses but without the clarity of words and without significations. It seems to speak to us, but we do not understand it. The song is pure affect, a pure face of a moment of rest, a silence in noise. This cinematic experiment, in a Deleuzian sense, affects the senses by not visualising the invisible but rather by making the invisibility of the matter visible7. A woman, in the rupture of images of the aunt, plays with light, a kind of Christmas light. But this light does not enlighten her. Rather, she loses her face in the light, her image becomes vague. Parisa, the filmmaker who has become one the characters in this movement-image, pictures her own uncertainty, her own search for meaning. By asking the aunt for answers to questions about her own intentions as a filmmaker, she forces the question mark in the face of the aunt. The eye of

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______________________________________________________________ the camera converges with the face of the viewed. There is no distinction between the viewer and viewed. But if Parisa is shocked by the loss of her imagined identity, she forces herself to become an image, beautiful and attractive. This act however acknowledges the loss even more. The images are shifting and the pure speed confirms the purity of movement in matter, the purity of transformation. The pictured speed ridicules the fixed meaning, there and here; something that Deleuze calls ‘territories’. Nahid has become a kind of pure deterritorialisation, because of the forced territories. Life has become a nonlife. Knowledge is lost, by not knowing which gap of not knowing to fill. Parisa does not know which gap to fill. Which aunt to recall, or to revive back to life? She has lost the clarity of a question. A body without organs, which Nahid once was, has become organised through isolation and disconnection. The body has become a pure territory, a reterritorialsation in the sense that it has become an isolated whole without any connection to others. However at the same time this territory deterritorialises Parisa. Because of the rupture of communication between the aunt and the niece, the niece loses her familiar way of relating herself to her aunt. She has lost her affection as a relation. But Parisa refuses to give up. She remains certain of her connection with the aunt. She just questions the identity of this connection. One of her uncles speaks of Hafez, the famous fourteenth century Iranian poet. He speaks of the fifth element that binds the elements water, wind, fire and earth. Without the fifth element the four elements are unrelated, incomplete. Hafez calls the fifth element love. Agamben’s work informs us that love is a gesture, the affection that relates ‘whatever’ to the other. Here, ‘whatever’ does not imply an attitude of indifference, like whatever, but is rather whatever that as such matters8. Love is the power within the movement actualising the impossible connection between them and the new aunt. The deterritorialisation is also shown by a little girl putting her veil on and taking it off at the same time, showing the illusion of a distinction of the east and the west. Putting on and taking off the veil within the same movement. This movement deforms the face of the movie star that the filmmaker wants to become. It puts her eyes literally upside down. Love is the great expectation; it is pure expectation of something sensed without signifier, without identity. The oldest uncle also seems to ‘avoid’ speaking of the aunt. He speaks of the wholeness of the universe, immanence with action, relation and idea as its elements, abstraction and matter within one another. Human is the subject and object, mind and body, of one and the same immanence, one and the same whole. There is no outside. And unwillingly this immanence brings the uncertainty of the filmmaker even further.

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______________________________________________________________ All images start to repeat themselves but within this repetition they are deformed, within this repetition they have become deterritorialised. The movements of the bodies become gestures without context, without a transcendent meaning. Bodies move without purpose, in the middle, they are movements. Parisa has no intentions, no message. Her face, her eyes are one and the same as the face of Nahid, Venus whose visibility defines the invisible, and the reflective clouds that cover her will to be. Nahid is a memory, a memory of life and its loss. A memory of politics, affection, a love without expecting to change the world around her. But the memory has no reference to an existing person. Nahid has become another body, another form, and another language. Nahid stares at the running water as if she wants to share the movement of life once more. The memories of this other body that has become unrecognisable. She is like running water that asks the doctor to restore her life, to restore her solidness. Why is unanswered. Nahid gazes in search of love and desires that which is lost, and Parisa wants to relate memory to matter, memory to a body that is related to her. For seconds Nahid seems to wake up, her gaze becomes a smile but just only for a few seconds. Parisa wants to love her, but wonders how. Her hope lies in the past. To be 18 again. ‘That would be nice’, Nahid whispers. 3.

Gesture of Communicability In ‘Notes on Gesture’ Agamben speaks of the loss of gesture in Western bourgeoisie and argues that our society tries to recapture its gesturality in the art of cinema. An Age that has lost its gestures is, for this reason, obsessed by them. For human beings who have lost every sense of naturalness, each single gesture becomes a destiny. [...] a gesture in which power and act, naturalness and manner, contingency and necessity become indiscernible9. The gesturality of cinema does not define itself by a fixated image or narrative, but rather through a dynamic polarisation and a virtual movement. This movement is experienced and at the same time it is impossible to fixate. Movement cannot be owned; it is not a being, but a becoming. Inspired by Deleuze and Bergson, Agamben speaks of a gesture as a movement-image. So although a gesture seems to be fixated, in its happening it always refers to something beyond itself that cannot be captured in a motionless image. In this relationality the gesture of the cinema becomes more than an aesthetic phenomenon. Relationality belongs to the domain of ethos, the domain of politics. Gesture is in the middle, it is endured, experienced. What characterises movement and gesture, for Agamben, Deleuze and Bergson, is

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______________________________________________________________ their non-reference to an end, to a goal that must be achieved. Gesture is means of relationality without purpose. The gesture is the exhibition of a mediality: it is the process of making a means visible as such. It allows the emergence of the being-in-a-medium of human beings and thus it opens the ethical dimension for them10. Gesture is communicability that is distinguished from clear communication or flow of information. Agamben speaks of being-inlanguage. This language however does not refer to words, but rather the lack of them. It ‘compensate(s) a loss of memory or an inability to speak’11. Nahid=Venus is the communicability of the faceless, despite the close-ups that seem to picture a person. Within her gaze she is all reference to something beyond the face, namely its loss. Nahid=Venus is the gesture of the nameless, despite the double naming, Nahid and Venus. We name her Venus, but Venus is invisibility surrounded by an unknown cloud. Nahid=Venus is political in its communicability wherein the unnamed and the faceless is imagined, not as a fantasy or fiction, nor as a fixated image or representation of a reality, but as an actuality of a life experienced in its movement and loss. ‘Fiction does not mean: to make visible the invisible, but to show how invisible the invisibility of the visible is’12. The invisibility of transition. Nahid=Venus is a qualitative change wherein not only Parisa’s life and Nahid’s life as refugees and prisoners have becoming transitional, but all life.

Notes 1

Giorgio Agamben, Means without End, Notes on Politics, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 2000, pp. 53. 2 Ibid., pp. 56. 3 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, Columbia University Press, New York, 1994, pp. 11. 4 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Continuum, London/New York, 2005 and Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Continuum, London/New York, 2005. 5 Parisa Yousef Doust, Nahid=Venus, 2008. 6 I deliberately use her first name, because in my view in this film she presents herself rather as Parisa than as Yousef Doust. 7 See Michel Foucaults analysis on fiction and visibility in: Michel Foucault, ‘Het denken van het Buiten. Over Maurice Blanchot’ (Dutch translation of

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______________________________________________________________ ‘La pensée du dehors’/‘The Thought from Outside’), in: Michel Foucault, De verbeelding van de bibliotheek. Essays over literatuur, SUN, Nijmegen, 1986, pp. 95-122. 8 Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 1993, pp. 1-2. 9 Agamben, Means without End, pp. 53. 10 Ibid., pp. 58. 11 Ibid., pp. 59. 12 Foucault, ‘Het denken van Buiten’, pp. 102, my translation.

Bibliography Agamben, G., The Coming Community. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 1993. _______

, Means without End, Notes on Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis/London, 2000. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., What is Philosophy?. Columbia University Press, New York, 1994. Deleuze, G., Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Continuum, London/New York, 2005 and

_______

, Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Continuum, London/New York, 2005.

Foucault, M., ‘Het denken van het Buiten. Over Maurice Blanchot’ (Dutch translation of ‘La pensée du dehors’/‘The Thought from Outside’), in De verbeelding van de bibliotheek. Essays over literatuur. M. Foucault, SUN, Nijmegen, 1986, pp. 95-122. Yousef Doust, P., Nahid=Venus. 2008. Tina Rahimy is a government (NWO) awarded researcher, employed as a PhD at the Faculty of Philosophy of Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research Voices of Diaspora: Philosophy, Arts, Politics and the Construction of Refugee Subjectivity investigates the politicalphilosophical relevance of artistic expressions of refugee subjectivity.

Imitating Art or Life: The Tragic Hero’s Emergence on France’s Postcolonial Stage Stephanie-Alice Baker Abstract Samuel Huntington notably predicted that post cold war conflicts would originate from cultural and religious differences that he referred to as the ‘clash of civilizations’. Communicated through evocative symbols, civilizations construct and maintain a sense of identity through social myths: explanatory ideas that reflect sociocultural difference and continue to permeate public consciousness in the domain of popular culture and sport. The capacity for social myths to shape public opinion will be explored in this paper by examining how Zinédine Zidane’s 2006 World Cup misdemeanour was mediated as a social tragedy in France. A Neoaristotelian perspective is employed to demonstrate how the footballer’s on-field misconduct was constructed as mythos (a tragic plot) by framing the historical episode within racial, ethnic and religious discourses pertaining to France’s political geography. While extant stereotyped constructions discriminating against racial minorities reflected the nation’s emotional climate, they did not determine it. It is observed that France’s President, Jacques Chirac, possessed the power to reorient prevailing social myths by scripting the footballer’s personal misfortune as a social tragedy ‘writ-large’ for the postcolonial nation. Mediated through poignant symbols that equated Zidane’s revered emblem with French supremacy and postcolonial unity, this ‘social tragedy’ is drawn upon to examine how the political logic of the sacred and profane transformed an historical episode into a tragic event that hindered public contestation of the French footballer’s scandalous transgression. Social myths solidifying France’s moral order around such ‘logic’ framed Zidane’s head butt as an ‘honourable’ contest of colonialist ‘pollution’ and defence of Republican values - the insult towards the footballer offending the moral sentiments of the social collectivity with his personal transgression emblematic of a social tragedy in postcolonial France. Finally, it is argued that the way in which mythos is constructed and disseminated for public consumption results in real consequences for society as models through which individuals recognise themselves and the society to which they belong. Key Words: Aristotle, emotion, postcolonialism, tragedy, Zidane.

culture,

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myth,

mythos,

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Tragic Praxis On the evening of July 9 2006, the world watched as France and Italy competed for football’s most prestigious prize – the World Cup. In what was established to be his final match before retirement, Zinédine Zidane captained the national team in an attempt to repeat France’s 1998 World Cup victory, but it was not to be. At the 110th minute Italy and France stood at one all with goals from Italy’s Marco Materazzi and France's Zinédine Zidane. In an ironic ‘twist of fate,’ an altercation between these two players resulted in Zidane head butting Materazzi in response to constant physical provocation (Materazzi repeatedly pulling at Zidane’s jersey) and an alleged racial slur. The French captain was consequently penalised with a red card and dismissed during the decisive final minutes of the game in extra time. The game ended with no additional scoring and moved to a penalty ‘shoot-out’ as Italy won 5-3, depriving France of their captain and arguably most valuable player and goal scorer. Despite scoring France’s only goal and being awarded the Golden Ball for the most outstanding player of the tournament by half time, Zidane’s climactic reversal of fortune was encapsulated by the final minutes of the game: the French captain watching from the sidelines in disgrace as Italy secured its victory and, in doing so, sealed the ‘tragic fate’ of France’s iconic hero. This vignette of Zinédine Zidane expelled during the 2006 World Cup after reacting against an alleged racial insult represents a contemporary social tragedy in the domain of sport. Zidane’s on-field misdemeanour emerged as an Event ‘writ-large’, with the capital ‘E’ referring in Aristotelian terms to how the historical episode was interpreted and scripted as a tragic plot (mythos). The coherence of mythos was achieved by situating the footballer’s action in a set of evocative symbols, established social myths and discourses that enabled audiences to recognise the broader relevance of Zidane’s ‘fall from grace’. Resembling what Dayan and Katz refer to as a ‘media event’1, the term ‘social tragedy’ employed in this paper pertains to a specific genre whereby specific historical episodes of personal misfortune are framed as ‘Events’ of social significance. Selected, edited, replayed and amplified in photographs and by means of slow-motion footage, media coverage of social tragedies are often arbitrary constructions that reflect the agenda of those controlling the means of production while being governed by their allegiance to state and commercial interests. Media speculation concerning precisely what provoked Zidane’s head butt was exacerbated by the footballer’s refusal to disclose the specific phrasing of the insult revealing only that Materazzi had repeated ‘very hard words,’ what he regarded as ‘very serious things, very personal things’2, disclosed shortly after by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association to be defamatory, although not of a racist nature3. Following Zidane’s disclosure, the press altered their orientation from framing

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______________________________________________________________ Materazzi’s alleged racial provocation to a sexist slur made towards Zidane’s mother or sister. When it emerged that Zidane’s mother had been hospitalised during the World Cup Final, Materazzi publicly denied insulting his mother: I didn't say anything to him about racism, religion or politics…I didn't talk about his mother either. I lost my mother when I was 15 and even now I still get emotional talking about her4. Press reports concerning the exact wording of the insult ranged from initial assumptions discriminating against Zidane’s Algerian heritage, ironically towards his religious orientation - despite being a self-confessed ‘non-practicing Muslim’5, finally to sexist insults made towards Zidane’s mother or, depending on the veracity of Materazzi’s statement, his sister Materazzi disclosing that in response to repeatedly pulling at Zidane’s jersey, the French captain offered to give it to his Italian opponent after the match in jest, to which Materazzi replied: ‘I'd prefer your whore of a sister’ - using the Italian word ‘puttana’, meaning whore or tart6. The significance of these discourses is that ‘race,’ ethnicity and religion were reified as factors engendering Zidane’s on-field misconduct. This process of reification enabled Zidane’s transgression to be framed as an event of ‘great magnitude’ through a series of signifiers and social myths that employed these categories as explanatory concepts - the corollary being that already disadvantaged racial, ethnic and religious minorities symbolically invested in his-story were further stereotyped through being implicated in his violent head butt. Moreover, despite being the alleged source of provocation, feminist readings were for the most part absent from the media event, obscured within football’s ‘theatre of gendered warfare’ and the dominant discourses of ‘chivalric masculinity’7. It is apparent that these forms of discrimination are not necessarily demarcated as sexism may correspond to racial and ethnic prejudice when interpreted within existing structures of power. The echo chamber of mediated responses to the scandal position the precise insult made towards Zidane of secondary importance, the event’s tragic construction and mediated visibility a testament to the significance it held for France’s public imagination and other cultural arenas. Zidane’s World Cup scandal assumed eminence beyond the domain of sport and triviality conventionally associated with celebrity misdemeanours. Mediated as a social tragedy, the event reinforced John Thompson’s observation that scandals provide important insights into the ways in which power is exercised insofar as the transgressions at the heart of personal tragedies are publicly contested in the symbolic realm through claims, critiques and counter-critiques. As struggles for ‘symbolic power,’ the ramifications of social tragedies are their capacity to undermine the

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______________________________________________________________ protagonist’s reputation and trust - the very resources from which power is derived – further disempowering those symbolically implicated in their decline8. The social consequences of tragedy point to the central aim of this paper: to examine how Zidane’s transgression, what could have been considered a particular historical episode of standard on-field aggression, was constructed into mythos (a tragic plot), a social tragedy, by being rationalised around a ‘necessary’ sequence of events, whose mediation reflects the influence of social myths and spheres of power. 2.

From Personal Error to Social Tragedy Mythos occupies an important place in the tragic genre as the social construction of the plot. Referred to by Aristotle as ‘the first principle’ and ‘soul of tragedy’, the philosopher argued in the Poetics that through observing tragedy audiences could accomplish catharsis (emotional clarification) by affectively rationalising the plot’s sequence of events in a process synonymous with feeling-realisation9. Research on mythos has generally fallen into disrepute following the ascendance of Enlightenment rationalism, which polarised reason against the affective, superstitious dimensions of myth10. While tragedy has lost the prominence it formerly held in ancient Greece, it has been replaced to a large extent by manifestations of ‘the tragic’ in contemporary scandals that are mediated in popular culture for public consumption. It is in this context that Zinédine Zidane’s World Cup sporting scandal will be explored, not merely as a personal tragedy for the French footballer or confined to the domain of sport, but rather from a sociological perspective with regard to the implications that his ‘tragic’ geste afforded - a civic tragedy with social consequences for those with symbolic investments in his-story. Tragedy’s climax presents the opportunity for the audience to recognise how a certain sequence of events facilitated the hero’s reversal of fortune and subsequent decline. Yet precisely what is to be discerned from this cathartic process of recognition is increasingly troubled by the culturally dynamic and democratic arena in which manifestations of the tragic are mediated for popular consumption. Rather than hinder tragedy, appropriation is considered integral to the genres sustained relevance over time. For the most part, despite being appropriated by succeeding historical and cultural generations, mythos remains structured around universal themes. What does change is how playwrights and audiences perceive hamartia - that unfortunate ‘error of judgment’ encapsulated in one tragic act – to have contributed to the hero’s downfall and social tragedy emanating from their unfortunate predicament. Employing a Neoaristotelian paradigm to establish the semantic differences pertaining to a social myth and mythos, it has been proposed that as a mode of appropriation, the latter serves as an important point of conjecture whereby debating upon the motivation, context and

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______________________________________________________________ external forces facilitating the hero’s tragic decline, the audience may publicly deliberate upon the very issues lying at the heart of the body-politic. By deciding precisely when the hero’s fortune started to go awry, the playwright has a significant impact on the meaning of tragedy. For example, there is consequence in deciding whether Zidane’s action should be considered a spontaneous incident of on-field aggression, attributed to his disadvantaged upbringing in the banlieus (French working-class suburbs) or framed more generally as a defence of his Algerian heritage in postcolonial France. In locating what Aristotle referred to as the initial ‘uncaused cause’ of tragedy, publicly mediated mythos (tragic plot) inform the ways in which scandalous transgressions are received and reconciled. Zidane’s act was affectively rationalised by various publics as signifying juxtaposing mythoi: both a tragic ‘fall from grace’ and heroic act of insolence. In the latter case, considered by some to represent ethnic pride and courage in the face of adversity, Zidane was glorified for his heroic revolt against the capitalist and colonialist identities imposed upon him – an action further perceived to embody the common passions responsible for humanising the stature of France’s revered anti-hero. In spite of Zidane’s on-field transgression contributing to the France’s World Cup defeat, the footballer maintained his iconic public standing. The code of silence preserved by local media and state authorities during the aftermath of the scandal is a testament to Zidane’s sacred stature in France11. As the son of Algerian immigrants, Zidane was a counterargument to the popular conflation of immigrants, unemployment, violence and welfare dependency. For the Franco-Algerian footballer provided the country with a symbolic alternative to established prejudices, and immigrant football fans with a positive image that they, too, could contribute to the success and ethos of Republican France. Zidane’s symbolic stature as an emblem of harmonious ‘race’ relations in football and postcolonial France explains why FIFA and French political authorities respectively maintained support for the footballer despite his coup de tête – responsible for helping Italy ‘get-a-head,’ as one blog recalled12. David Beckham was vilified by English fans, receiving death threats, including the hanging of an effigy outside a London pub, after a similar incident in which England were eliminated by Argentina from the 1998 World Cup Final in a penalty shootout consequent to Beckham being dismissed with a red card for kicking Argentina’s Diego Simeone. One might have expected Zidane to have received comparable public condemnation succeeding his World Cup dismissal, and yet the French captain maintained his national popularity in spite of his transgression with a poll published in Le Parisian newspaper two days subsequent to the Event revealing that 61 per cent of the 802 people questioned instantly forgave Zidane13. Not only did the nation forgive the French captain, within two months of his misdemeanour

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______________________________________________________________ that reduced the team to a 10-man squad and, arguably, lost Les Bleus the World Cup, the footballer’s iconic grip over the ‘conscience collective’ was expressed in a survey for Le Journal du Dimanche in which Zidane was voted the country's most popular personality for 48 per cent of the surveyed population. Support for Zidane infiltrated political spheres where, upon receiving the French national team at the Palais de l'Elysée, President, Jacques Chirac publicly expressed his adoration of the sporting icon in spite of his transgression: Dear Zinédine, What I want to say to you at this most difficult moment of your career is that the whole nation has admiration and affection for you, and respects you. You are a virtuoso, a genius of world football, and you are also a man of heart, of commitment, of conviction. That is why France admires and loves you…a man who proves that France is strong when it is united in all its diversity14. Notwithstanding Zidane’s sacred grip over the ‘conscience collective,’ it was apparent that state authorities had vested interests in protecting the country’s emblem from national and international scrutiny. Heralded as a local icon in a country segregated by racial riots and ethnic discord, it was paramount that those possessing political power prevent the footballer from becoming yet another victim of racial discrimination in postwar France. With France’s recent colonialist history threatening to undermine the moral existence of Chirac’s body politic – ‘united in all its diversity’ - it became vital for the President to reorient the footballer’s on-field transgression from an act of violence to a pitiable symbolic representation of resistance against dehumanisation: an essential characteristic of the tragic hero who Aristotle described as ‘the undeserving victim of adversity’15. While Chirac had the social power to control the means of production, for this interpretation of Zidane’s head butt as a compelling tragic performance to achieve verisimilitude, the footballer’s action required a script, itself supported by a set of social myths operating within the political logic of the sacred and profane that could legitimately restore his public image. In short, for Zidane to be cast as the tragic victim of this morality play, his ‘error of judgment’ would have to be situated within the tragic genre, perceived more specifically as an ‘honourable’ defence of racial pride – ‘of heart, of commitment, of conviction’ - against his polluted, colonialist aggressor. Contextualised in this manner, Chirac’s public sanctioning of Zidane reflects the President’s deliberate attempt to solidify France’s moral collectivity through the ritualised performance of football. While the cultural pluralism and ideological diversity characterising complex societies

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______________________________________________________________ commonly prevent social performances from fusing in ‘authentic’ ways, the particular political climate segregating postcolonial France emphasised the ‘need’ for Chirac to stage manage the performance16. Given the capacity for audiences to symbolically associate Zidane’s head butt as a ‘natural’ corollary of social and economic inequities, it was paramount for Chirac to censor media scrutiny of the footballer during the aftermath of his World Cup scandal for France’s moral order to remain integrated. Establishing a national script through which to frame the footballer’s scandal became all the more important with respect to Zidane’s tragic performance insofar as the footballer’s personal transgression symbolically reflected broader civic conflicts endemic to the nation: the personal misfortune of racial disadvantage characterising his-story emblematic of the social tragedy pertaining to many. In addition to Zidane’s celebrity status and strategic representation as a ‘race ambassador’ accounting for his sustained public support, it was the footballer’s sacred stature, through which he was revered as a national icon after his decisive role in France’s 1998 World Cup victory17, that preserved the nation’s ‘love’ for him. The French President’s and, apparently, ‘the whole nation’s [sustained] admiration and affection’ for their national icon, may be contextualised within Benedict Anderson’s notion of Imagined Communities18. Rather than fabrication, this concept of the nation as limited and sovereign refers to ‘an imagined political community’, in view of the fact that the majority of the nation’s inhabitants do not know each other or attempt to communicate: ‘yet in the mind of each lives the image of their communion’. ‘Imagined’ here implies the exaggerated creation of civic bonds, rather than mere fabrication, with imagination crucial in the emergence and preservation of social solidarity: ‘regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep horizontal comradeship’19. The French editorial, Liberation, encapsulated this common sentiment: ‘For over a month, France dreamt with Zidane. This morning she will wake up with Chirac’20. Communicated through evocative symbols, Zidane’s sacred emblem as a ‘race ambassador’ - ‘who proves that France is strong when it is united in all its diversity’ - was crucial in fusing France’s fraternity and in sustaining his revered status. It has been observed that social myths operate as evocative modes of symbolic communication that unify and distinguish civilizations. Indispensable to the power relations inscribed in them, social myths have the propensity not only to solidify, but enhance discrimination by classifying membership according to the political logic of the sacred and profane. It was precisely this symbolic logic that enabled President Chirac to script Zidane’s transgression as a social tragedy ‘writ-large’ - where Materazzi’s alleged racial provocation came to symbolise a profane act of injustice that offended

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______________________________________________________________ not only the footballer, but the moral sentiments of France’s postcolonial community Zidane was cast within this social tragedy as the embodiment of purity, France’s sacred hero, whose head butt was not so much an act of aggression but a defence of the nation’s moral order: ‘united in all its diversity’. With the capacity to control the means of production, Chirac’s tragic mythos was strategically mediated in the public sphere, rendering orthodox collective representations of ‘Muslim fanaticism’ and ‘primitive Orientalism,’ which one may have expected to signify Zidane’s misdemeanour ‘post 9-11’, to be more commonly replaced by a social myth unique to France’s postcolonial landscape – that of the ‘race ambassador’. It has been observed that framing Zidane’s head butt within the genre of social tragedy not only demarcated French press reports from international media coverage of the scandal, it turned a standard act of on-field sporting aggression into a tragic event of social significance.

Notes 1

D Dayan and E Katz, Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 1992. 2 Z Zidane, ‘Interview with Zinédine Zidane’. Canal Plus, 12 July 2006, n.p. 3 FIFA., ‘Zidane/Materazzi disciplinary proceedings: suspensions, fines, community service and regret’, in FIFA.COM, Thursday 20 July 2006, viewed 09 April 2009, . 4 M Materazzi, ‘Zidane Apologizes, Says Materazzi Insulted Mother, Sister’, Fox News, 2006, viewed on 29 November 2008, . 5 A Hussey, ‘ZZ Top’. The Observer, 04 April 2004, n.p. 6 M Materazzi, op. cit., n.p. 7 Y Jiwani, ‘Sport as a Civilizing Mission: Zinédine Zidane and the Infamous Head-Butt’. Topia, vol. 19, 2008, pp. 11, 14, 25, 28-9. 8 J Thompson, Power and Visibility in the Media Age, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. 9 Aristotle, ‘Poetics’, in Aristotle: Poetics; Longinus: On the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style, S. Halliwell (trans.), Loeb Classical Library, Boston, 2005, pp. 53. 10 R A Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. 11 That France’s conscience collective collectively fused the country’s moral community around their national icon further supports Durkheim’s thesis that the idea of society is “the soul of religion”. E Durkheim, The Elementary

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______________________________________________________________ Forms of Religious Life. C. Cosman (trans.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, [1912] 2001, pp. 314. 12 C Pearson, ‘Zinédine Zidane Helps Italy Get A Head’, WordPress.com. Theme: Cutline, 2006, viewed 23 May 2009, . 13 H Dauncey and D Morrey, ‘Quiet Contradictions of Celebrity: Zinédine Zidane, Image, Sound, Silence and Fury’. International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, 2008, pp. 301-320. 14 J Lichfield, ‘Why France still loves Zidane’. The Independent, 2006, pp. 4 15 Aristotle, op. cit., pp. 71. 16 J C Alexander, ‘Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance Between Ritual and Strategy’. Sociological Theory, vol. 22, no. 4, 2004, pp. 527-573. 17 The French team had a weak start to the 2006 World Cup. Despite winning the tournament in 1998, its success was relatively new and limited and many considered the French team, who averaged over thirty, too old to rival the agility of players from other nations. As well as captaining the team, Zidane played a central role in France reaching the World Cup Final. 18 B Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, [1983] 2006. 19 ibid., pp. 6-7. 20 J Lichfield, op. cit., n.p.

Bibliography Alexander, J. C., ‘Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance Between Ritual and Strategy’. Sociological Theory, vol. 22, no. 4, 2004, pp. 527-573. Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, London, [1983] 2006. Aristotle., Nicomachean Ethics. H. Rackham (trans.), Loeb Classical Library, Boston, 2003. Aristotle., ‘Poetics’, in Aristotle: Poetics; Longinus: On the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style. S. Halliwell (trans.), Loeb Classical Library, Boston, 2005.

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______________________________________________________________ Aristotle., On Rhetoric: A theory of civic discourse. G. A. Kennedy (trans.), Oxford University Press, New York, 2006. Camus, A., The Myth of Sisyphus. J. O’Brien (trans.) Penguin Books, London, [1955] 2000. Carlson, D., ‘Troubling Heroes: Of Rosa Parks, Multicultural Education, and Critical Pedagogy’. Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2003, pp. 44-61. Dauncey, H. and D. Morrey., ‘Quiet Contradictions of Celebrity: Zinédine Zidane, Image, Sound, Silence and Fury’. International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, 2008, pp. 301-320. Dayan, D. & Katz, E., Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 1992. Durkheim, E., The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. C. Cosman (trans.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, [1912] 2001. FIFA., ‘Zidane/Materazzi disciplinary proceedings: suspensions, fines, community service and regret’, in FIFA.COM, Thursday 20 July 2006, viewed 09 April 2009, . Hussey, A., ‘ZZ Top’. The Observer, April 04, 2004. Jiwani, Y., ‘Sport as a Civilizing Mission: Zinédine Zidane and the Infamous Head-Butt’. Topia, vol. 19, 2008, pp. 11-33. Lichfield, J., ‘Why France still loves Zidane’. The Independent, 2006. Materazzi, M., ‘Zidane Apologizes, Says Materazzi Insulted Mother, Sister’, Fox News, 2006, viewed on 29 November 2008, . Mignon, P., ‘Fans and Heroes’. Sport in Society, vol. 1, no. 2, 1998, pp. 7997.

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______________________________________________________________ Nussbaum, M., The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India’s Future, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 2007. Pearson, C., ‘Zinédine Zidane Helps Italy Get A Head’, WordPress.com. Theme: Cutline, 2006, viewed 23 May 2009, . Segal, R. A., Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. Thompson, J., Power and Visibility in the Media Age. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. Zidane, Z., ‘Interview with Zinédine Zidane’. Canal Plus, July 12, 2006. Stephanie-Alice Baker is an honorary postdoctorate research fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Baker’s field of research is primarily in two areas referred to as the sociology of emotions and cultural sociology. After conducting empirical research for her dissertation on Franco-Algerian relations in France, she is currently studying the emotional dimension of ancient Indian festivals and human rights initiatives in Kashmir and Nepal.

Analysing Generalised Trust in Heterogeneous Communities Using Social Representations Olimpia Mosteanu Abstract Generalised trust has been considered the most accurate proxy for the degree of trust toward other people. Even more, it has been often asserted that generalised trust is an indispensable social component that fosters the cohesion of the contemporary diverse society. In this paper, I draw on the assumption that generalised or social trust is not as rational as the rational choice theory avers it is. Moreover, I consider that this assumption is even clearer when taking into consideration diverse societies. The paper goes beyond the cognitive rational choice theory and Uslaner’s seminal work on moral trust and it argues that the main problematic issues are not how much the trustees are influenced by the morality or reputation of others, but, on the contrary, they are related to how generalised trust should be comprehended when the wide range of interactions in which social actors engage is evoked. In my arguments, I first raise the issue of differential effects of heterogeneity and homogeneity that characterises communities in understanding generalised trust. Then, I link the concept of heterogeneity to collective memory and social narratives. I explain why the study of generalised trust in heterogeneous communities should be based on the theory of social representations in order to reveal how easily generalised trust can be mistaken for something else. Hence, I explicate how the notions of core and peripheral elements of social representations would furnish us with a better research apparatus for investigating generalised trust in heterogeneous communities. Key Words: Generalised trust, heterogeneous communities, social trust, social representations. ***** 1.

Background Discussion Before delving into the analysis of social representations as means of understanding how generalised trust works in heterogeneous communities I would like to introduce the reader into this topic using two distinct but complementary stories. The first one comes from ‘The New York Times’ magasine and briefly depicts patterns of social interactions specific for migrant and non-migrant students of a high school outside Washington:

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______________________________________________________________ Two girls, a Muslim in a headscarf and a strawberry blonde in tight jeans, stroll arm in arm. A Hispanic boy wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt gives a high-five to a black student with glasses and an Afro. The lanky homecoming queen, part Filipino and part Honduran, runs past on her way to band practice. The student body president, a son of Laotian refugees, hangs fliers about a bake sale. (...) When asked why they did not have any friends among the immigrant students, some mainstream students responded by mentioning a worker who did not finish a job their parents had paid for, or a line of pregnant women at the clinic where their mother works, or a gang member who stole a friend’s book. When students are asked why they have not made friends outside of their [ethnic] group, they often tell stories about a customer who cursed at them while they were working at McDonald’s, or an employer who cheated their father of his wages, or a student who told them to stop speaking Spanish on the school bus1. The second story calls upon a multifaceted research conducted by Brubaker et al. between 1995 and 2003 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Yet the fact that there are identifiable ‘Hungarian’ and ‘Romanian’ views on certain subjects, and that these can generate disagreement, is well known to Clujeni. As a result, these subjects are considered ‘sensitive’, and they are generally avoided in mixed settings. Yet the very act of avoidance can, paradoxically, make ethnicity experientially relevant. The self-conscious avoidance of ethnically or nationally issues implies an identification of co-participants in ethnic terms. Interactions between spouses and partners, classmates and colleagues, friends and neighbours can thus become experientially interethnic when such sensitive issues are broached – or when they are self-consciously avoided2. What are these two stories pointing at? They are, indeed, straightforward examples of social interactions that characterise minority-majority relations in heterogeneous communities. But as this paper will expand, we are going to see beyond the obvious. Therefore, I will come back to these two stories throughout the article. At this point, it is important to stress that the purpose of this paper is to reveal how researchers could use social representation in order to get more in-depth and accurate data on generalised trust. The paper

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______________________________________________________________ is not concerned with the fact that using social representations for measuring generalised trust does not make for clear-cut indicators appropriate for quantitative research. Subsequently, when reading this paper one should bear in mind that the scope of the present endeavour is not to rebut the sweeping indicators that have been employed over the years in quantitative studies, but the theories that underpin them. This analysis of generalised trust draws on the findings of the qualitative study ‘Multicultural education and social capital’ I carried out in the spring of 20083. The main objective of the research was to investigate how the dimensions of multicultural education relate to social capital. It explored whether subjects’ openness towards several objectives of multicultural education was linked to their participation in community’s life or to social trust4. The nature of the research allowed me to use a rather loose definition of social capital, trying to observe social interactions and not to elicit responses from the participants. The focus group method was employed to collect and investigate opinions, behaviour and attitudes specific to the Romanian and Hungarian high school students on their social networks, the communities in which they live and the educational institutions, from the perspective of social capital and the openness towards several objectives of multicultural education. I hypothesised that the central part of the social representation and the peripheral system are used in different kinds of interactions between the social actors, since they have different inputs and outcomes pertaining to cooperative or deflective strategies. After analysing the collected data I came to address the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

To what extent can one say that having colleagues or friends from out-groups and being sensible to the needs of those out-groups imply two different types of norms of cooperation and deflection? To what extent does having friends from out-groups entail more awareness and responsiveness to the needs of other groups? Does friendship involve only the negotiable, norms-based part of the social representations, when ‘the other’ is perceived merely as a human being? Does the act of being tolerant with people from out-groups entail the part of social representation based on the system of values and collective memory? Does the fact that two social actors cooperate in some situations, namely in those that require the use of the negotiable part of social representation, necessary lead to cooperation in symbolic interactions, namely those that engage the central part of social representation?

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______________________________________________________________ At that time, based more on theoretical grounds than on field evidence, I was merely able to sketch a general assumption: even if two social actors may cooperate in some situations, namely in those that require the usage of the negotiable part of social representation (henceforth referred to as instrumental social interactions), this does not necessary lead to cooperation in symbolic interactions, namely those that engage the central part of social representation. The remainder of the paper consists of three main sections: first, a section which explicates why generalised trust is a much more intricate topic in heterogeneous communities than in homogenous ones; secondly, a section which explores the relations between social representations and generalised trust; thirdly, a concluding section. 2.

Generalised Trust in Different Social Interactions Generalised trust has often been considered a measure of the extent of openness towards society’s common set of beliefs5. Reviewing what other scholars wrote about generalised or social trust I discovered that there are four questions which have attracted a rather impressive consensus. These questions are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing you people? Generally speaking, most people can be trusted. Do you agree or disagree? Generally speaking, you can’t be too careful in dealing with people. Do you agree or disagree? People can be trusted until they prove otherwise. Do you agree or disagree?6

Responses to these questions seem to be consistent and stable over time, and evidence shows that the variables present almost the same values even when controlling for respondents’ experience7. For example, the question ‘Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people?’ stems from the American General Social Surveys and it was introduced for the first time in 1972 and it is still in use, and over the last decades it has also entered the European Values Survey and the World Values Survey. Nonetheless, the limitations of these types of questions have been more and more recognised in the literature on social trust in the last years8. Most of the studies dealing with the limits of ‘the standard questions of social trust’ refer to issues such as the equivocacy of the reference group the respondent might have in mind when operating with the ‘most people’ frame, and of the meaning of ‘trust’. Reflecting on these predicaments, Soroka et al.

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______________________________________________________________ consider that the answers to the so-called standard social trust questions elicit responses that depict what individuals ‘think they should think rather what they actually do think’9. Therefore, the most arduous theoretical and empirical dilemma to be addressed either by quantitative or qualitative studies on generalised trust refers to the content and meaning of the concept of generalised trust. So far, several studies have pinpointed that the indicators measuring the latent concept of generalised trust can differ across countries10. In the same line of thought, Delhey and Newton write that given the evidence that ethnic homogeneity is significantly positively correlated with generalised trust, measuring generalised trust may not add up to measuring trust in ‘others in general’ but in ‘others who are like us’11. Sobel contends that drawing conclusions from cross-cultural comparisons of trust is not conducive to accurate explanations of how trust works in society. He asserts there is an acute need for asking ourselves whether ‘the capacity to trust is based on deeply rooted cultural traditions or can be influenced by the kinds of institutions that can be constructed and nurtured in less than a generation’12. Pichler and Wallace argue that measuring trust is much like quantifying the extent to which others can generally be trusted without knowing anything about them from particular experiences13. Hence, it seems quite reasonable at this point to ask together with Delhey and Newton how generalised trust really is. Even if Uslaner does not directly answer this question he still seems to have an appropriate handle on this theoretical quandary. He assumes that generalised trust is ‘the perception that most people are part of your moral community’14. Uslaner goes on writing, ‘generalised trusters…are not fuzzy multiculturalists. They believe in a common core of values and hold that ethnic politicians should not represent only their own kind’15. Yet another way to deal with the problematic question of ‘how generalised is the generalised question?’ is illustrated by Nannestad’s approach: trust can be deemed as being issue or domain-specific. So, he states that comparisons of the levels of generalised trust between individuals, communities, countries, or even time intervals are only consistent and valid if respondents pertain to the same domain of trust, and this reference is stable across those individuals, communities, countries, or intervals of time16. Alesina et al. pose an exceptionally relevant question considering the issues under consideration – ‘why does heterogeneity matter for trust?’ They say heterogeneity matters because low levels of generalised trust are positively associated with heterogeneity, social disintegration and lack of social solidarity. One explanation could be that costs of social interactions in homogeneous communities are lower than those pertaining to ethnoculturally diverse contexts. In Hooghe and Stolle, both theoretical and empirical evidence consistent with this view can be found17. Apparently, in heterogeneous communities generalised trust functions as a regulatory social

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______________________________________________________________ apparatus because of the binding sets of norms and values that underpin it. Thus, the costs of social transactions in heterogeneous communities do not result exclusively from exposure to out-groups, but also from symbolic repertories. The exposure to out-groups refers to direct experiences with ‘others who are not like us’ and symbolic repertories consist in all types of discourses that strengthen or loosen the boundaries among groups. Therefore, both of them shape and reinforce individuals’ and groups’ identities affecting the costs of social transactions across people and networks. In view of all the cited literature, the question remains how generalised trust can be measured knowing that it can have different contents, meanings, and referents if social contexts, or social interactions, or specific domains are to be taken into consideration. 3.

Generalised Trust and Social Representations Social representation theory is embedded in the French tradition of social studies. It stems from both social psychology and sociology as it was much influenced by Durkheim’s collective representation; Halbwachs’ social frames of memory, and Moscovici’s cognitive systems which amount to a combination of individual and societal processes such as attribution, categorisation, stereotyping, and distribution of knowledge. In terms of definitions, Moscovici deems social representation as ‘a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual and group history’18. He writes about two processes which seem to account for the way social representations work: the process of anchoring - as the acquisition of new items of knowledge or experience by reducing them to known categories and images, and by making them part of familiar contexts; and the process of objectification – as the transformation of abstract thoughts into concrete constituents of reality19. Social representations are not collective maps that control every step individuals take, but reference points characterised by different degrees of flexibility. Drawing on Moscovici’s contributions, Doise et al. emphasise the need for considering inter-individual differences when analysing the content of social representations20. In a study on human rights as normative social representations, Doise calls upon three main assumptions considered to support the study of social representation: first, the assumption that social representations are based on patterns of communication that work as ‘common landmarks of significance to individuals or groups involved in symbolic exchanges’, secondly, the assumption that there are differences with regard to individuals’ adherence to the common maps, thirdly, the assumption that membership in social groups (or as Doise calls it – ‘the shared social insertion’) lead to specific interactions and experiences that mould individual positioning towards certain social representations21.

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______________________________________________________________ Abric also relies on Moscovici’s anchoring and objectification notions, but he transforms them into two general questions regarding the processes of social representations: ‘in which way do these processes socially develop?’, and ‘how do these processes get cognitively organised?’22 For the purpose of answering these questions, Abric investigates the content of social representations in terms of a central core and marginal elements, distinguishing between a stable, coherent, non-negotiable structure and one that is shaped by individual preferences and normative systems. The core of representation is moulded by the group’s collective memory and its system of values. The peripheral system links the system of representation to reality. Its main role is to properly adjust the central system to the necessities and constraints of each social situation. Therefore, the negotiable structure of social representations concerns the individuals’ attitudes, ideas, and behaviour, and also the norms in which they are embedded. For this reason, it is deemed that the peripheral system assists the central system in dealing with day-by-day interactions23. Given the previously discussed theoretical statements, social representation theory allows for both complex qualitative and quantitative approaches24. That is why, over the last two decades social representation theory has been used in studies on prejudices, discrimination, or inter-racial relations. Numerous authors turn to the two pairs of concepts coming from social representation theory - objectification-societal anchoring and the coreperipheral elements - in order to validate their theoretical assumptions on multicultural or bicultural public discourses, tolerance, or human rights25. Having sketched the main theoretical lines which converge in the concept of social representations, I return to the question of how generalised trust should be measured knowing that it can have different contents, meanings, and referents if social contexts, or social interactions, or specific domains are considered. Up to this point of discussion, two ideas have been emphasised: on the one hand, the content, meaning and referents of generalised trust seem to be linked to the types of social interactions in which individuals are engaged; on the other hand, the understanding of different social interactions pertains to different social representations. Therefore, I distinguish between the stable, coherent, system of values and collective memory-based part of the social representation that intervenes in symbolic interactions; and the negotiable, norms-based part of the social representations that mediate day-by-day interactions. The analysis of representations of generalised trust in different social interactions narrows down the following distinction: instrumental social interactions are those in which ‘others’ or ‘most people’ are simply viewed as human beings, whilst symbolic social interactions are the ones in which ‘most people’ refer both to members of the in-group and the outgroup. Instrumental social interactions are hypothesised to be linked to the

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______________________________________________________________ peripheral elements of social representations while symbolic ones are hypothesised to be related to the core of social representations. 4.

Concluding Remarks Considering that in vastly heterogeneous communities the issues of meaning, content and referents of the concept of generalised trust are even more problematic than in more homogeneous ones, I suggest that the study of generalised trust should be based on the theory of social representations. The notions of core and peripheral elements of social representations furnish us with better explanations for investigating generalised trust and help us not to mistake it for something else. Therefore, when Brubaker was talking about the strategies of avoidance in the cited paragraph, he was in fact depicting social representations at work. Different types of social interactions, namely those in which individuals try to avoid topics that make ethnicity experientially relevant and those interactions in which ethnicity is experientially visible. Moreover, Brubaker argues that when one borrows milk from a neighbour, buys a newspaper, or engages in small talk at work, the background knowledge that participants belong to different ethonational categories is often entirely irrelevant to the governing frame of the interaction26. These are all examples of social interactions in which cooperation or trust does not call upon collective memory or common narratives, but only an instrumental understanding of relationships. With regard to the first story, different types of social interactions involving generalised trust are captured by: ‘two girls (...) stroll arm in arm’, the election of an immigrant as ‘the student body president’, ‘a worker who did not finish a job their parents had paid for’, ‘a line of pregnant women at the clinic their mother works’, ‘a gang member who stole a friend’s books’, ‘a customer who cursed at them while they were working at McDonald’s’, ‘an employer who cheated their father of his wages’, ‘a student who told them to stop speaking Spanish on the school bus’. Some of the examples refer to instrumental understanding of relationships, but others frame relationships in ethnically laden terms. Being given a variety of social interactions it should not be assumed that the norms of cooperation and deflection are the same. Putting this in terms of generalised trust, it should not be taken for granted that in different social interactions the concept of generalised trust holds the same extension and intension. As has been documented throughout this paper, the extension and intension of the concept of generalised trust depend upon collective memory, past experience (or ‘history of play’ as rational choice theorists call it), social narratives, therefore they rely on ‘the regulations carried out by the

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______________________________________________________________ social metasystem in the cognitive system, as far as their links with specific positions in a set of social relationships are clarified’27. All in all, the extension and intension of the concept of generalised trust need to be further addressed by research on the instrumental and symbolic interactions.

Notes 1 G Thompson, ‘Where education and assimilation collide’. New York Times, 14th March 2009, viewed on 5th August 2009, 2 R Brubaker, M Feischmidt, J Fox, L Grancea, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town, Princetown and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006, pp. 307. 3 O Mosteanu, Multicultural education and social capital, 2008. Unpublished manuscript. 4 The ‘openness towards multicultural education’ concept tried both to measure the level of tolerance, ethnocentrism, interest in and respect for other groups and cultures, and to depict what the social representations that shape attitudes, opinions and behaviours with regard to the items mentioned earlier look like. Hence, the openness towards multicultural education was concerned with the relations between minority and majority groups. 5 For further information see: E Uslaner, Moral foundations of trust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002; F Fukuyama, Trust. The social virtues and the creation of prosperity, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1995. 6 For extensive data on the advantages and the limitations of these questions see: P Nannestad, ‘What have we learned about generalized trust, if anything?’, Annual Review of Political Sciences, vol. 11, 2008, pp. 413-436.; E Glaeser, D Laibson, J A Scheinkman, C Soutter, ‘Measuring trust’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2000, pp. 811-846.; T Reeskens, M Hooghe, ‘Cross-cultural measurement equivalence of generalized trust. Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002 and 2004)’, Social Indicators Review, vol. 85, 2008, pp. 515-532.; J Delhey, K Newton, ‘Predicting cross-national levels of social trust: global pattern or Nordic exceptionalism?’, European Sociological Review, vol. 21, no 4 September 2005, pp. 311-327. 7 Ibid. 8 See P Nannestad, op. cit. 9 S Soroka, J Helliwell, R Johnston, ‘Measuring and Modelling Trust’, in Diversity, Social Capital and the Welfare State, F. Kay and R. Johnston (eds), University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, BC, 2007.

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______________________________________________________________ 10

See E Glaeser, D Laibson, J A Scheinkman, C Soutter, op. cit.; T Reeskens, M Hooghe, op. cit.; P Nannestad, op. cit. 11 See J Delhey, K Newton, op. cit., pp. 324. 12 See J Sobel, ‘Can we trust social capital’, Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XL, March 2002, pp. 139-154. 13 See F Pichler, C Wallace, ‘Patterns of formal and informal social capital in Europe’, in European Sociological Review, vol. 23(4), 2007, pp. 423-435. 14 E Uslaner, ‘Does Diversity Drive Down Trust?’, FEEM Working Paper no. 69, 2006. Viewed on 5th August 2009, 15 See J Sobel, op. cit., pp. 149. 16 See P Nannestad, op. cit., pp. 418. 17 See M Hooghe, ‘Social capital and diversity. Generalized trust, social cohesion and regimes of diversity’, in Canadian Journal of Political Science, no. 3 2007, pp. 709-733; M Hooghe, D Stolle, Generating social capital: civil society and institutions in comparative perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003. 18 S Moscovici, “La psychanalyse, son image, son public”, Presses Universitaires de France, 1961, pp. xvii. 19 See W Doise, A Clemence, F Lorenzi-Cioldi, The quantitative analysis of social representations. Hemel Hempstead, Wheatsheaf, 1993; S Moscovici, op. cit.; S Moscovici, ‘The phenomenon of social representations’, in Social representions, R. M. Farr and S. Moscovici (ed). Cambridge University Press, London, 1984. 20 Ibid. 21 See W Doise, D Spini, A Clemence, ‘Human rights studied as social representations in a cross-national context’, European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 29, 1999, pp. 1-29. 22 See J-C Abric, ‘Specific processes of social representations’, in Papers on Social Representations, no. 5(1), 1996, pp. 77-80., pp. 77. 23 Ibid. 24 Qualitative approaches include document and discourse analysis, participatory observation, interviews, and focus groups. Quantitative approaches entail only one main research method - social surveys - but they correspond to an impressive number of methods of data analysis: correspondence analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, or hierarchical linear modelling. 25 W Doise, Human rights studied as social representations in a crossnational context, op. cit. 26 R Brubaker, M Feischmidt, J Fox, L Grancea, op. cit., pp. 302. 27 W Doise, The quantitative analysis of social representations, op. cit. pp.2.

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Bibliography Abric, J-C. ‘Specific processes of social representations’. Papers on Social Representations, vol. 5(1), 1996, pp. 77-80. Alesina, A., Devleeschauwer, A., Easterly, W., Kurlat S., Wacziarg, R. ‘Fractionalization’. Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 8, 2003, pp. 155-194. Binmore, K. Playing Fair: Game Theory and the Social Contract. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994. Brubaker, R., Feischmidt, M., Fox, J., Grancea, L., Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town, Princeton University Press, Princetown and Oxford, 2006. Delhey, J., Newton. K., ‘Predicting cross-national levels of social trust: global pattern or Nordic exceptionalism?’, European Sociological Review, vol. 21, no. 4 September 2005, pp. 311-327. Doise, W., Clemence, A., Lorenzi-Cioldi, F., The quantitative analysis of social representations. Hemel Hempstead, Wheatsheaf, 1993. Doise, W., Spini, D., Clemence, A., ‘Human rights studied as social representations in a cross-national context’, in European Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 29, 1999, pp. 1-29. Farr, R. M. ‘From collective to social representation: Aller et retour’. Culture & Psychology, vol. 4(3), 1998, pp. 275-296. Fearon, J. ‘Ethnic structure and cultural diversity around the world: a crossnational data set on ethnic groups’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 29th August – 1st September 2002, Boston, USA. Fukuyama, F. Trust. The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1995. Glaeser,E. D Laibson, J A Scheinkman, C Soutter, ‘Measuring trust’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2000, pp. 811-846.

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______________________________________________________________ Hardin, R., ‘Trust in government’. in Trust and Governance ed. Valerie Braithwaite and Margaret Levi. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998. Harell, A., Stolle. D., ‘Building bridges or reinforcing barriers? Diverse networks and social capital’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, 12-15 July 2006, Barcelona, Spain. Hooghe, M., Reeskens, T., Stolle, D., Trappers. A., ‘Ethnic diversity, trust and ethnocentrism in Europe. A multilevel analysis of 21 European countries’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 31st August-3rd September 2006, Philadelphia, USA. Hooghe, M. ‘Social capital and diversity. Generalized trust, social cohesion and regimes of diversity’. in Canadian Journal of Political Science, vol. 3, 2007, pp. 709-733. Hooghe, M., Stolle, D., Generating social capital: civil society and institutions in comparative perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003. Montalvo, J. G., Reynal-Querol, M., 2005. ‘Ethnic diversity and economic Development’. in Journal of Development Economics, vol. 76, 2005, pp. 293323. Moscovici, S. The phenomenon of social representations. Social representions. R. M. Farr, S. Moscovici (eds). Cambridge University Press, London, 1984. Moscovici, S. “La psychanalyse, son image, son public”, Presses Universitaires de France, 1961. Mosteanu, O. Multicultural education and social capital, 2008. Unpublished manuscript. Nannestad, P. ‘What have we learned about generalized trust, if anything?’, in Annual Review of Political Sciences, vol. 11, 2008, pp. 413-436. Pichler, F., Wallace. C., ‘Patterns of formal and informal social capital in Europe’, in European Sociological Review, vol. 23(4), 2007, pp. 423-435.

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______________________________________________________________ Putnam, R. ‘Pluribus Unum: diversity and community in the twenty-first century’. in Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 2, 2007, pp. 137-174. Reeskens, T. ‘Defining social cohesion in diverse societies: a Durkheimianbased analysis of trust and normative consensus in ethnically diverse societies’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 30th August-2nd September 2007, Chicago, USA. Reeskens, T., Hooghe, M., ‘Cross-cultural measurement equivalence of generalized trust. Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002 and 2004)’, Social Indicators Review, vol. 85, 2008, pp. 515-532. Rothstein, B. ‘Trust, social dilemmas and collective memories’. in Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 4, 2000, pp. 477-501. Sobel, J. ‘Can we trust social capital’, in Journal of Economic Literature, vol. XL, March 2002, pp. 139-154. Soroka, S. Helliwell, J., Johnston, R., ‘Measuring and Modelling Trust’, in Diversity, Social Capital and the Welfare State, F. Kay and R. Johnston (eds), University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, BC, 2007. Thompson, G. ‘Where education and assimilation collide’. New York Times, 14th March 2009, viewed on 5th August 2009, Uslaner, E. Moral foundations of trust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. Olimpia Mosteanu is graduate student at Babes-Bolyai University in ClujNapoca, Romania.

Addressing the Legacy of Violence within the Youth Agenda in Northern Ireland: Practical Strategies and Methods of Working with Young People within a Society Coming to Terms with the Past and the Future. Barry Fennell and Laura Stewart Abstract Young people represent not just our future but they are regarded as agents, beneficiaries and victims of major societal change and as such, are confronted by a paradox: to seek to be integrated into an existing order or to serve as a force to transform that order. During the Northern Ireland conflict many young people seldom received any special attention or assistance. This is still a matter of urgent concern within a ‘post-conflict’ society where emerging and dangerous political membership is on the rise; where the balance between mainstream and militant political ideologies needs to be established. The recent activities of an exclusive group of terrorists in Northern Ireland, capable of fresh recruitment and further havoc, needs to be examined and analysed if we are to avoid escalation. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, arguably one of the most influential figures within the Republican movement, labelled the dissidents as ‘traitors to the island of Ireland’1. These ‘traitors’ are a myriad of contradictions and the emerging ‘new tribe’ amidst the growing and developing peace process within Northern Ireland. They are against the peace process, detached from society; determined to destabilise what has been achieved since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998. Operating within this environment, Co-operation Ireland feels that vulnerable young people need to be engaged in the self-realisation of a positive peace. Co-operation Ireland works from a grassroots to strategic level to provide opportunities for young people, within and beyond the island of Ireland; to create positive networks and approaches that will allow this generation of young people to be effective agents of change that will build a meaningful peace within Northern Ireland and sustainable relationships beyond its’ borders. This paper provides examples of practical engagement, activities and approaches used by Co-operation Ireland. Key Words: Community, interface, legacy, mutual benefit, project development, relationship building, young people, youth agenda. ****

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______________________________________________________________ 1.

History and Background to the Troubles from The Cure at Troy Human beings suffer, they torture one another, they get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song can fully right a wrong inflicted or endured. The innocent in gaols beat on their bars together. A hunger-striker's father stands in the graveyard dumb. The police widow in veils faints at the funeral home. History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells. Call the miracle self-healing: The utter self-revealing double-take of feeling. If there's fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky That means someone is hearing the outcry and the birth-cry of new life at its term2.

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______________________________________________________________ ‘Now follow me and do exactly what you see Don’t you wanna grow up to be just like me?3’ In this paper, we both welcome the opportunity, and intend to share the process and impact of four programmes developed by Co-operation Ireland, a non-governmental organisation working to facilitate and improve the economic, educational, governmental and social relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Much of our current programme and project development thinking reflects the current status of the youth/community agenda within Northern Ireland as it responds to a new generation of disaffected, angry, voiceless young people who have been drawn into a new wave of factionalism and militancy within this troubled land in recent years. Co-operation Ireland continues to develop challenging, engaging and innovative pathways and opportunities to create alternative journeys for young people susceptible of being drawn into these new radical activities and dissident groupings. The terms ‘Troubles’ and/or ‘The Conflict’ are regarded by those who have lived, endured and witnessed them as that period of time within Northern Ireland’s history where violence, suffering, loss and a sense of hopelessness prevailed. It is generally agreed that the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ ran from the summer of 1969 until 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

Belfast 1682 Co.Armagh 518 Co.Tyrone 363 Co. L/ Derry 357 Co. Antrim 206 Co. Down 204 G. Britain 126 Republic 119 Co. Fermanagh 110 Europe 18

Diagram 1: Distribution of deaths by area

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______________________________________________________________ During that time some three and a half thousand people were killed; 273 of those deaths were children. The majority were killed in Belfast (1682 people) followed by Co. Armagh (518 people). In Belfast, most deaths occurred in West Belfast, which includes both the predominantly Protestant Shankill Road and the predominantly Catholic Falls Road. A large majority of the three and a half thousand deaths were young men under 24 years of age; many of these young men were parents or had some effect on young people’s lives. During this period in Northern Ireland’s history, a significant number of young people were subject to the most vicious and protracted violent influences upon them, a level of violence never before seen in the United Kingdom or Ireland: Neighbours set up and killed neighbours; families were divided by conflicting loyalties. In hundreds of cases no one was convicted. Slaughter was met with slaughter. Children were used as killers, children were killed, parents were killed holding their child’s hand. People were murdered at weddings and funerals4. A shocking level of hatred is documented where one killer, who knew he was not going to be convicted, saw the parents of the boy he killed at a local swimming pool and swam in circles around the person like a shark eyeing up its prey5. This level of hatred, marking territory and communal demarcation was bizarrely manifested in physical barriers between the main communities, particularly in Belfast. ‘Peace walls’ were constructed between communities to keep them apart- ostensibly for the safety of all- adding to the concept and reality of a divided society. Inexplicably a ‘peace wall’ was even constructed in the City Cemetery where both Protestants and Catholics were buried but the difference between this and other peace walls was that this one was constructed underground. Even the dead are segregated! Included in his speech in Berlin, the then Senator Barrack Obama made the inevitable reference to Northern Ireland when he said that the ‘Walls had come down in Belfast’6. These must have been metaphorical walls as the reality is that there are more real walls separating communities in Belfast than at the time of the Good Friday agreement ten years ago. Peace walls are being constructed faster than they are being taken down- including one, within the past two years, in the grounds of an integrated school, through its playground area7. Many other urban and rural areas across Northern Ireland remain deeply divided, with people today struggling with their memory, impact and legacy of a divided and troubled past, whilst also coming to terms with an

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______________________________________________________________ uncertain future particularly with genuine fears around a return to violence, the rise and growth of criminal gangs, dissident, and militant factions as witnessed recently with reactionary violence in Ardoyne, Rasharkin, Coleraine and Derry. 2.

The Youth Agenda Within Northern Ireland during the troubles the impact upon young people and their development was affected and disrupted due to the cycle of violence and the loss of family members and friends. At times families in some areas were depleted of suitable parental influences and stabilising role models. Trauma, dislocation, loss, fear, hopelessness and mistrust were unwelcome realities in the lives of a lot of young people during this period. In terms of socialisation and the notion that we are born into a society that has certain rules of behaviour or culture and we, as human beings, learn these rules through this socialisation process; within Northern Ireland this experience and process, for young people, was very anomalous. Amidst this confusion there was an absence of guidance, advice and nurturing support as many older family members were being imprisoned, murdered, blown-up, shot at and taken away. It is this legacy that we continue to grapple within Northern Ireland’s post-conflict society. This is a legacy that affects the current generation of young people, who have little or no personal memory of the troubles. However, the recent rioting around the 12th July Marches, the deaths of British soldiers Sapper Mark Quinsey and Sapper Patrick Azimkar as well as the murder of PSNI officer Stephen Carroll are all testament to the fact that the impact on the communities and families of those young people is still relevant within their lives. It can be argued that the extreme and prolonged circumstances of armed conflict within Northern Ireland interfered with the transition from childhood to early adulthood of generations of young people. This transitional time, when young people experiment with questioning authority and received wisdom in order to develop a sense of identity requires that young people have constructive outlets, encouragement and mentors. Without such opportunities many can, and have, disengaged from society and become involved in anti-social behaviour and/or criminality. The conflict for many led to societal changes, social upheaval and sudden changes in family circumstances. Events such as the death, imprisonment and disappearance of parents, friends and loved ones have left many young people without guidance, role models or opportunities for meaningful civic engagement. Many young people were deprived of important and identifiable ‘role models’ during this significant developmental phase, thus placing them in a position of risk- of social and economic stability, child poverty and

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______________________________________________________________ becoming involved in paramilitary or criminal activity. Beyond Northern Ireland, the consensus is that the war in Northern Ireland is over; there is peace. While this is true in some sense, problems still exist. The legacy of the Troubles is real. Northern Ireland is considered to be a post-conflict society and while for the majority this may be the daily reality, violence still continues, mostly amongst young people in certain ‘interface’ areas (an interface area is the name given to areas where segregated Protestant and Catholic residential areas meet in Northern Ireland. They are ‘the intersection of segregated and polarised working class residential zones, in areas with a strong link between territory and ethno-political identity’8) and within communities associated with a history of deep communal division, segregation, paramilitary influence, high unemployment, mistrust and isolation9. 3.

The Emergence of Co-operation Ireland Co-operation Ireland emerged at the end of the 1970s, at the height of the violence, fear and hopelessness of ‘the troubles’. The organisation was established with the understanding that the lack of social and economic collaboration between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was detrimental to both countries’ development. Within Co-operation Ireland, cross border, and increasingly, cross community collaboration has always existed on the premise that those involved do so on an equal footing, that the ultimate outcome is for mutual benefit. For our work to achieve any degree of success, we have no affiliations to either the unionist or nationalist calls for Northern Ireland’s national identity. We are concerned with how people are provided the opportunities to work and build relationships with those from different backgrounds, identities and cultures. During the 1980s and 1990s Co-operation Ireland’s range of work extended into formal and non-formal education and community groups. By working at all levels within society, with a common purpose for mutual benefit, we have developed a strategic approach to widen horizons and challenge negative perceptions and stereotypes. Before discussing the methods employed by Co-operation Ireland and other NGOs within Northern Ireland for tackling the legacy of violence and sectarianism, we need first to establish the meaning of sectarianism and understand the relationship issues that are at its core; it is the issue of sectarianism that drives the current emergence of disenfranchised and dissident young people. In its most basic form, sectarianism in the Irish context refers to the way in which we define the divisions between the communities on the island, who have traditionally seen themselves as Irish and British and which are also largely divided on religious grounds - Catholic and Protestant. In terms of identity formation, both communities go through a

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______________________________________________________________ labelling process that reinforces community segregation through education, social networks, housing and cultural experiences10. While religion is recognised as an important element of sectarianism and in the Northern Ireland context, this has come to be seen as the most significant element, there are a variety of political, social, economic and historical considerations that are equally significant and important to the development of models for anti-sectarianism. Sectarianism in Ireland needs to be viewed as unique in terms of the localised historical and political developments that revolve around the tensions in the relationship between Ireland and the British State; sectarianism in Ireland can be differentiated by the specific local conditions at play11. Thus, sectarianism relates to the divisions, which exist between the communities on the island of Ireland, and is expressed in a variety of actions and attitudes, which originate from a range of cultural, social, religious and economic considerations. These actions and attitudes are usually negative ones based upon the prevalence of stereotypes, generalisations, misconceptions and interpretations regarding group self-interests. Sectarianism breeds bitterness and hatred and has been at the root of the Northern Ireland’s conflict and the breakdown of relations between the communities across the island. Within the current environment however other emerging and challenging factors have arisen with the scaling down and normalisation of daily life. The high levels of segregation in housing, schools and the labour market in Northern Ireland exacerbates and reinforces the divisions and the lack of mutual understanding. Isolation in rural, interface and border areas intensifies the problem for many communities. Opportunities for contact and inter-group mixing has been shown to mediate anxiety towards out-group meetings and have a positive effect on the levels of prejudice and negative attitudes12. By providing opportunities for cross-community and cross-border activities, groups and individuals who mutually engage in exploring their culture and communities can work together to address common issues. By doing so, these groups develop positive relationships which, in turn, enhances mutual understanding and improves comfort levels with inter-group contact. Cross-border contact is also a key component to combating anti-sectarianism because it addresses the relationship central to sectarianism in Ireland, i.e., between the Irish and British States. Cross-border contact has also been shown to successfully contribute to reconciliation across the island13 and the development of positive attitudinal change14. Our approach therefore involves inter-group engagement, exploration and relationship building via northsouth and cross-community contact exchanges.

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______________________________________________________________ 4.

Practical Engagement Programmes and Case Studies The main theory underpinning Co-operation Ireland’s programmes is Contact Theory, which maintains that a major means of reducing intergroup prejudice or bias is through contact between the groups under optimal conditions15. The optimal conditions include equal status, common goals, authority sanction and lack of competition. By facilitating these optimal conditions, the result should be a decrease in prejudice16. In the early years of Co-operation Ireland’s work, contact exchange programmes served the emerging dispensation on the island well, and gave people an opportunity to satisfy their curiosity about the ‘other’. The Exchanges Programme within Co-operation Ireland has given a large number of people, from the youth, education and community sectors, a cross-border experience, which has served them well in this context as it provided people with a first contact experience. However, in recent years, with greater interaction and movement between people from both sides of the border, the need for first contact programmes has lessened - although it does, in some cases, offer those groups wishing ‘to tip their toe in the water’ an opportunity for discovery and engagement. The mystique of crossing the border to meet ‘them’ is no longer as important in peoples’ lives as in the past. The improved travel infrastructure and increased cross-border economic activity have seen vast amounts of people travelling throughout the island for a variety of reasons. With this being said, current needs are different and indeed multilayered. There is a modified need among groups and individuals, present throughout the community which manifests itself in the individuals and groups for whom first contact is not sufficient. There is a current desire among many groups and individuals to amplify this opportunity and enter into a process that is much more challenging. Basic contact experiences can happen relatively easily through a social scene that probably wasn’t available in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Co-operation Ireland seeks to build directed activities over and above the contact approach. While traditional paramilitary influences have a limited and lesser control and hold on communities across Northern Ireland, there have been significant societal and demographic shifts that have had an impact upon people here. The following four case studies serve to demonstrate alternatives that Co-operation Ireland uses to address the legacy of violence within the Youth Agenda in Northern Ireland. They provide practical strategies and managed methods of working with young people within a society emerging from a violent conflict into a state of negative peace. The case studies include Civic-link, CORE, ECHO and Youth at Risk.

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______________________________________________________________ A. Civic-Link Civic-link is an active citizenship partnership programme, engaging young people positively in their communities and enhancing the experiential learning experience by partnering each school with another- either in a cross community (between the two main traditions within Northern Ireland) or cross border partnership (between a group in Northern Ireland and a group in the Republic of Ireland). The programme has been running since 1999. CivicLink is based on ‘Project Citizen’ which was developed by The Centre for Civic Education in the United States and first used in secondary level schools in 12 American states in 1995-96. As of November 2006, approximately 22,500 teachers have taught Project Citizen to over 1,400,000 students in America. Project Citizen aims to promote competent and responsible participation in local and state government by enabling participants to monitor and influence public policy. In the process, they develop support for democratic values and principles, tolerance, and feelings of political efficacy. Students work co-operatively to identify a public policy problem in their community. They then research the problem, evaluate alternative solutions, develop their own solution in the form of a public policy, and create a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy. Participants develop a portfolio of their work and present their project in a public hearing showcase before a panel of civic-minded community members.

Diagram 2: The amalgamation of Project Citizen and Co-operation Ireland

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______________________________________________________________ Co-operation Ireland has modified Project Citizen to concurrently address public policy issues as well as reconciliation and mutual understanding through the inclusion of the partnership aspect of Civic-Link. Many aspects of project Citizen’s portfolio are included in Civic-Link which include integration of the contact theory using exchanges, mutual understanding activities and tasks, co-operation and collaboration between the groups based around the theme of active civic participation. This theme provides the backbone of the Civic-Link Programme. An independent evaluation of Civic-Link established that two thirds of students reported positive gains in their engagement with community life, and an increased capacity to improve their lives within their own community. The evaluation also found Civic-Link students had more interest in and an increased sense of responsibility to learn about the culture and traditions of the other people: Four in five reported positive benefits in terms of having a greater understanding of and respect for the culture and traditions of their partner school...Findings arising from the comparisons with students in controlled schools [protestant] not undertaking classes in civic, social or community relations issues - indicates Civic-Link is achieving its objectives...There has been significant gains in participants beliefs regarding playing an active role in the community in which they live, their knowledge of their communities, and their competencies to improve the quality of life in their communities17.

Diagram 3: The online learning environment interface

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______________________________________________________________ One of the report’s findings was that the students who had two face-to-face meetings provided more positive results than the groups with only one faceto-face meeting. In response to this, Co-operation Ireland over the past two years has developed an online interactive environment to facilitate greater ‘meeting’ opportunities - using a method of communication most young people are comfortable and proficient at using. This online environment allows young people to carry out a blend of activities - including those that permit the young people to get to know each other through personal and group tasks, as well as completing tasks required for the civic-action aspect of the Civic-Link programme. B. CORE CORE (Community Outreach Reconciliation and Engagement) is an intergenerational, cross-border and area based project, involving Finglas South (Republic of Ireland), Inner East Belfast and Short Strand (Northern Ireland), working with all sections of those communities. It was developed as a result of a partnership developed between: Co-operation Ireland, Short Strand Community Partnership, EBCDA (East Belfast Community Development Agency), Short Strand Community forum, Dublin City Council, Finglas South CDP, Finglas-Cabra Partnership and the Finglas South Combined Residents Association. The idea of the pilot is to work with entire communitieshorizontally and vertically, every age, community group and family to provide them with an opportunity to be part of a cross border and cross community activity they would find valuable, interesting and relevant to their lives. The overall aim is ‘to support local people in developing activities that will enhance the quality of life for people living in the Finglas South and Inner East Belfast communities.’ Co-operation Ireland and its partners believed in developing and delivering this project as a community-wide programme, as it would provide an entire community with greater intergenerational, socio-economic links, leading to a greater sense of inter and intra-dependence. The cross-border and cross community links provided participants with experiences and support that they could feed back into their own community, leading to grassroots community led development. There is a recognition that for a change in attitudes and beliefs about the ‘other’, all levels of community should be involved, thereby increasing the breadth of personal experiences that will lead to behavioural and attitudinal change. Whilst still in its early stages anecdotal evidence of CORE suggests that many aspects of the corresponding communities have become involved and are sharing experiences and taking part in activities that involve collaboration and co-operation between the three communities. As stated all aspects of the corresponding areas are involved including the youth communities, which appear to work together positively, and there is a

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______________________________________________________________ definite sharing of commitment to work together for the benefit of these areas. C.ECHO ECHO (Effective Choices Helping Ourselves) is a sectoral based programme of engagement and empowerment which aims to establish greater levels of interaction, dialogue and employability amongst young people from sectarian/interface areas of disadvantage, particularly within the greater Belfast area, and where social and economic development has been adversely affected by the Troubles. Interface areas have been targeted as they can be particular flashpoints for violence and where the legacy of the Troubles has been most evident. Participants will be young people up to the age of twenty-eight who have been excluded or marginalised from economic, social and civil networks as a result of the conflict. This may be as a result of either their own personal tragedy or events from within their own communities. Participants will engage in a two-year structured programme of personal development, cultural exchanges, active citizenship and courses to improve their employability choices. The programme is designed to tackle issues of marginalisation, low levels of integration and under achievement amongst young people affected by the legacy of the conflict and will provide practical skills for participants to enhance their life prospects. Co-operation Ireland is aware that the legacy of violence, division, suffering and trauma has had a lasting impact on young people within certain communities within Northern Ireland: ‘Thirty years of violence have led to problems in Northern Ireland which affect our children and young people, some of whom still need particular support and help’18. Co-operation Ireland, through this programme, also accepts the need for good citizenship work, including volunteering and the skills for living with difference amongst young people and the necessity for specific educational programmes19. This project will address these identified needs, as well as the negative perceptions and stigmas that have developed amongst communities, through the provision of a structured programme of personal development, cultural exchanges, active citizenship and courses to improve young people’s employability choices20. This project will attempt to directly break down and address the perceptions and stigma of the legacy of the troubles amongst young people. It will also aim to promote the full reintegration of young people affected through family tragedy or community tensions affected by the conflict

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______________________________________________________________ through a range of learning/development opportunities and to challenge perceptions and address diverse attitudes about the skills and capacity of young people from fragmented and divided communities. The personal development programme within the ECHO proposal has been designed to tackle issues of marginalisation, issues of separation, isolation, fragmentation, violence and exclusion, which have been identified as needs within Northern Ireland21. There are still significant problems of segregation and sectarianism within Belfast as previously mentioned in this paper. This project will specifically target areas where sectarian tensions and incidents are high. The project will address this issue through workshops that will facilitate attitudinal change amongst participants and by providing opportunities for contact with young people from different traditions. There is an identified lack of tailored, practical learning and training opportunities and facilities in working class Protestant communities; this project will work to address this issue through the provision of employability training in deprived interface areas; enabling the participants to take control of their own choices and increase their understanding of the impact their behaviour has within their own community22. Co-operation Ireland intends to commence delivery of this project late 2010. D.Youth at Risk Since the beginning of 2009, Co-operation Ireland has engaged in consultation with a range of statutory and voluntary organisations, as a response to current events within Northern Ireland and our understanding of the need to provide our disenfranchised and marginalised youth with a positive outlet, providing them with the opportunity to turn the negative peace that exists into a positive peace. Although the Northern Ireland peace process has been successful in bringing politicians together, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done at grassroots level in both urban and rural communities in Northern Ireland to underpin and strengthen the political agreement. As mentioned earlier, recent events in Northern Ireland, including the killings of British soldiers Sapper Mark Quinsey and Sapper Patrick Azimkar as well as the fatal shooting of PSNI officer Stephen Carroll have highlighted the ongoing tensions at grassroots and community level. Significantly, young people are believed to be the perpetrators of these crimes. This indicates that, despite the official ceasefires and political progress that has been made since 1994, paramilitarism and violence continues to have an attraction for young people in Northern Ireland. A number of dissident paramilitary groups have demonstrated that they are capable of recruiting young people from different communities. These groups are not only able to offer a sense of belonging to young people,

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______________________________________________________________ but also financial gain, respect, excitement and a purpose, which their families or communities are incapable of providing. Young people who were interviewed in Derry on St. Patrick’s Day 2009, highlighted the need for intervention if we are to prevent them becoming involved in criminality, violence and paramilitarism23. The Youth at Risk project will engage 7 groups of young people who are at risk of involvement in paramilitary gangs, and who come from different communities, to participate in a number of innovative programmes which will increase the capacity of the young people involved, provide leadership training and a personal development programme. This will provide the young people themselves with a viable alternative to sectarianism and gang violence, and enable them to have a positive influence on the behaviour and attitudes of their peers. The negative influences on the lives of those at most risk are many: It was not our choice…it was an art of defence, passed on by another generation…I have come to the conclusion that now we are living with it so long it has become addictive. It is a continuation of something that they have learned to get a buzz from, there is excitement in it…even a dignity and a worth in it24. Also impacting the legacy of the troubles are the ‘significant experiential differences depending on two main factors, namely where respondents lived and what their parents’ relationship was to the conflict’25. Young people within Northern Ireland have grown up with very different direct and indirect experiences of the troubles; however all our young people suffer from the effects of the conflict. Those most directly affected are at greater risk of disengaging from mainstream society- because it has never offered them a legitimate role- and engaging with organisations and people who do offer them dignity, worth and a sense of purpose and of belonging. This is the new threat of emerging dissident paramilitary groups. We must examine the destructive means of gaining ‘dignity and …worth’ and create an alternative; one that will allow a new tradition to be passed from generation to generation. If we don’t, then the legacy of the troubles will become entrenched as an ever-present threat to peace and stability. The outcome of the Youth at Risk programme is to provide those young people most at risk with a viable alternative to paramilitary and criminal activity. The Northern Ireland Assembly is very concerned by the increased level of orchestrated violence on the streets and the participation of groups of vulnerable young people. In response the various Government Departments have been given the task to implement a three-point strategy of Ten Weeks, Ten Months, Ten Years26. The strategy is based on immediate action and

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______________________________________________________________ diversion programmes over the summer months, longer programmes of urgent intervention to stop young people being drawn into violence and criminality and a final long-term strategy of education and training to ensure young people have viable alternatives and options in their lives. Numbers and statistics alone cannot measure the value of developmental and empowerment projects and what these could bring into different communities. The long-term benefits of increased skills and expertise, whilst hard to quantify, will have a bigger impact on, for example, community relations, breaking down barriers, challenging ideas, perceptions and attitudes about how people think of ‘others’, promoting equality and peace, celebrating alternative cultural differences, building relationships within a community, regeneration, health, education, to name a few. 7.

Conclusion Providing opportunities for young people is paramount for their development and lifelong learning. In a rapidly globalising world, our youth need to be involved, respected, heard and given the time and space to foster common values and to come together to understand and deal with their challenges facing the world today with each other and with those in power. Young people can no longer exist in social and cultural isolation or somehow feel detached or excluded. Sectarianism, in our understanding of life in Northern Ireland, prevails among all aspects of the community and is most problematic amongst communities who feel isolated, feel they lack representation or who have been unable to access the economic and social benefits resulting from the absence of conflict, otherwise known as the ‘peace dividend’. This leads many to see the ‘peace dividend’ as benefiting only one side and in fact reinforces bitterness and negative attitudes and feelings towards the other community. This is not a phenomenon unique to either community in Northern Ireland and is experienced mainly by sections of both the Catholic and Protestant working classes. Many of these communities often have weak community structures and thus, lack groups and individuals with the capacity to offer leadership to the community or with links to establish relationships beyond the community. The absence of strong, connected groups within the community results in weak social capital and this further contributes to feelings of isolation and abandonment. This inhibits the development of outward looking communities confident to engage on difficult and challenging issues on a cross-border and cross community basis. It is for these reasons that community empowerment and community development activities are useful components of anti-sectarian approaches especially for young people. The establishment of useful links and contact on a cross-community basis can also lead to the exchange of information and

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______________________________________________________________ enhanced understanding and respect. Empowering communities and potential community leaders to understand their own community, their culture and to understand the causes and effects of sectarianism enables them to begin a process of examination and change within their community. Co-operation Ireland still recognise and appreciate that many people seek to avoid issues of difference. Most who do so fear a breakdown in relationships that are getting along fine by ignoring these differences. By opening up issues of reconciliation and peace building concepts, many people are apprehensive about what might happen, and as such tend to shy away, or even avoid, anything that might bring up issues that could jeopardise existing relationships. Therefore, people are quite happy to ‘do’ cross-border and community relations work that involves little or no challenge. Co-operation Ireland continues to contribute to this ever-changing area through innovative and challenging project development and interactive approaches. In our post-conflict society we are fostering tangible and substantive understandings and connections between and amongst young people, their communities and other groups. The programmes highlighted in our paper indicate the range and diversity of approaches, methodologies and alternatives that Co-operation Ireland provides for its youth in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. Ireland, north and south, has witnessed many profound societal changes in the last ten years and within a post-conflict society, Co-operation Ireland continues to provide relevant, necessary and meaningful experiences and alternatives for young people.

Notes 1

BBC News website, ‘McGuinness: "These people are traitors"’ ,10/03/2009. 2 S Heaney, The Cure at Troy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. 3 Eminem, ‘Role Model’, The Slim Shady LP, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 1999. 4 S McKay, Bear in Mind these Dead, Faber and Faber, London, 2008, p12 5 ibid, pp. 12. 6 T Harnden, The Daily Telegraph, telegraph.co.uk, 25/07/2008, 20/09/2009, , 7 BBC News, BBC News website, , http://news .bbc.co.uk /1/hi/northern _ireland/6685355.stm 8 N Jarman, ‘Demography, Development and Disorder: Changing Patterns of Interface Areas’, Belfast: Institute for Conflict Research, 2004.

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N Jarman, ‘Drawing Back From the Edge: Community Based Response to Violence in North Belfast’, (1999) and Byrne, J, ‘Interface violence in east Belfast during 2002: the impact on residents of Short Strand and inner east Belfast,’ Belfast: Institute for Conflict Research, 2005. 10 A Bairner and Sugden, Sport, sectarianism and society in a divided Ireland. Leicester, UK, Leicester University Press, 1993. 11 R McVeigh, ‘Race Relations in Northern Ireland The Next Stephen Lawrence,’ Racist violence and criminal justice in Northern Ireland, CCRU, 1992. 12 E Cairns, & M Hewstone, ‘The impact of peacemaking in Northern Ireland on inter-group behaviour’ in G. Solomon & B. Nevo (Eds.) Peace Education: The concept, principles and practice around the world, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, New Jersey, 2002, pp. 217-220. 13 Evaluation of the Impact of the Cross Border Measures 5.3 and 5.4 of the European Union Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, 2000-2006, Channel Research for the Cross Border Consortium, 2007, pp. 98. 14 EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border region of Ireland 2000-2006: ‘Attitudinal survey, a NISRA report for the Distinctiveness Working Group’, Peace II Monitoring Committee, Special EU Programmes Body, 2004. 15 G Allport, ‘The nature of prejudice’, Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954/1979. 16 T Pettigrew, and L Tropp, ‘A Meta-Analytic test of Intergroup Contact Theory, Interpersonal relations and group processes’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 90, no 5, 2006, pp. 751-783. 17 WRC Evaluation Report, ‘Learning to Live Together: An Evaluation of Civic-Link, Executive Summary WRC Social & Economic Consultants, 2003, pp. 31. 18 R Eames and D Bradley (co chairs), Consultative group on the past 2007, pp. 72. 19 ibid, pp. 73. 20 O Muldoon: ‘Children’s Experience and Adjustment to Political Conflict in Northern Ireland’ Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology vol 6 issue 2, 2000, pp. 157-176. 21 Special EU Programmes Body, EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation2007 – 2013 Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland Operational Programme 22 Department for Social Development, ‘Taskforce report on Protestant Working Class Communities,’ DSD, 2006

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D McIntyre, ‘The gunmen who never went away’, documentary, BBC, 3rd April, 2009 24 U, Hansson, ‘Troubled Youth? Young People, Violence and Disorder in Northern Ireland’, Institute for Conflict Research, 2005, pp. 3. 25 C Magill et al, ‘The Role of Education in Reconciliation: The perspectives of children and young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland’, University of Ulster, 2009 26 NI Assembly, ‘Ten weeks, ten months, ten years government department strategy’, 2009

Bibliography Central Survey Unit, ‘Young persons behaviour Survey’, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, June 2004 Harland, K., Morgan T., Muldoon, O., The Nature of Youth Work in Northern Ireland: Purpose, Contribution and Challenges, Commissioned by Department of Education in partnership with Queens University Belfast, 2005 Harland, K., ‘The legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland: Paramilitarism, violence and youth work in contested spaces,’ in Youth Work in Conflict Societies. D Magnuson, & M. Baizerman, (eds), Rotterdam, Sense Publications, 2007 Jarman, N., O’Halloran, C., ‘Peacelines or battlefields? Responding to violence in interface areas’. Community Development Centre, Research and Policy Reports I, October 2000, pp 1-28 Hewstone, M., Cairns, E., Voci, A., Hamberger, J. & Neins, U. ‘Intergroup contact, forgiveness and experience of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland’, Journal of Social Issues, vol 62, issue 1, Feb 2006, pp.99-120 Lewis H., Dowds L., McGivern Y., Hamber B., Robinson G., Communities in Transition: an exploration of attitudinal barriers to the development of intercommunity relationships in a post-conflict society, INCORE University of Ulster, 2008 Lloyd, T., Stuck in the middle Some young men’s attitudes and experience of Violence, Conflict and Safety, INCORE, University of Ulster, 2009

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______________________________________________________________ WRC Evaluation Report, ‘Learning to Live Together: An Evaluation of Civic-Link, Executive Summary,’ WRC Social & Economic Consultants, 2003 PSNI, ‘PSNI Annual Statistical Report: Report No. 5: Statistics relating to the security situation 1st April 2008 – 31st March 2009, Central Statistics Unit, 2009 PSNI, ‘PSNI Annual Statistical Report, Report No. 3, Hate incidents & crimes, 1st April 2008 – 31st March 2009’, Central Statistics Unit, 2009 Northern Ireland Housing Executive, ‘Data matching exercise,’ , 20/9/2009, 2009 Barry Fennell is an Inter Community Interface Field Worker for the Irish Peace Centres Programme and Project Development Officer with Cooperation Ireland. He is involved in working closely with a diverse range of youth and community organisations throughout Ireland. He has a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies. Laura Stewart is an Education Development Officer for Co-operation Ireland. She is involved in designing and delivering education programmes within school and youth settings. She has a Masters in Education and Training for International Development.

SECTION III: THE POLITICS OF BELONGING

Being an African: Some Queer Remarks from the Margins Paul Prinsloo Abstract The University of South Africa (Unisa) has embarked on an official Africanisation process impacting on staff composition and curricula. This paper critically engages the construct of an assumed African identity from a specific personal location shaped by seemingly incommensurable characteristics of race, gender, culture, religion and location. This paper firstly proposes Africanisation as a necessary counter-narrative to the historical and continuing hegemony of North Atlantic epistemological and ontological canons, with the aim of decentring Western descriptions of African identity. Africanisation can secondly be understood as a discourse of perpetual longing for a quintessential African identity and culture as an archaeological project searching for and falling back on archives of identity and belonging. A third option for defining Africanness involves a palimpsest approach where the project is not to deconstruct and de-layer the different gestalts of identity in order to discover the ‘original’ but define identity as dynamically constructed and fluid at a specific time and place where identities are marked by a multiplicity of subject positions. This paper proposes identity, and specifically the African identity, as neither fixed nor singular, but rather as a constantly changing relational multiplicity. Despite this constant changing relational multiplicity, identities do assume specific patterns, as in a kaleidoscope, against particular sets of personal, social and historical circumstances. Key Words: Africanisation, counter-narrative, identity, postcolonial theory, queer. ***** 1.

Prologue If I compose (and share) a list of my different identities, I consciously make choose what to reveal and what to hide. In sharing this list, I do not claim the list to be exhaustive or permanent. My identities include being white, male, an Afrikaner, a South African, HIV+, 50 years old, educator, researcher, dying, being reborn, an atheist and many other identities that shape who I am in a specific context and time. Some of these identities shape my life more than others, depending on the context and time. For example, in my particular geopolitical context my race and sex have major implications when I apply for a job. My gender has implications for my acceptance in broader society and my health status

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______________________________________________________________ precludes me from visiting certain countries and living as one of ‘them’ - the stigmatised ‘other’. Each of my identities therefore brings with it certain responsibilities, meanings and penalties. In exploring my own identity as relational multiplicity, I hope to contribute to thinking about the question: When does which one of my identities matter to whom and why? The fact that identities do matter depending on the context is illustrated by Achebe, in an interview with Appiah. It is, of course, true that the African identity is still in the making. There isn’t a final identity that is African. But at the same time, there is an identity coming into existence. And it has certain context and a certain meaning. Because if somebody meets me, say, in a shop in Cambridge, he says ‘Are you from Africa?’ Which means that Africa means something to some people. Each of these tags has a meaning, and a penalty and a responsibility.1 2.

Introduction The title of this paper explicitly states that this paper is not pretending to talk about or represent all Africans. This paper is specifically embedded in a personal narrative of one African, reflecting on the meanings, penalties and responsibilities of being ‘an African’. This paper comments on some of the recent Africanisation discourses (exploring the importance of the African context on curricula and identity) at Unisa, an open distance learning (ODL) higher education institution with approximately 260 000 students geographically distributed throughout Africa and the world. In this paper I comment from the specific personal location/position of being a white, gay male. I propose (from this marginal perspective) a specific understanding of Africanisation as a necessary counter-narrative to the historical and continuing hegemony of North Atlantic epistemological and ontological canons. Though the status of Africanisation as counter-narrative is not disputed, in this paper I question and contest the exact parameters of an African identity as central to the Africanisation discourse. I firstly locate myself as a participant in the debates in and surrounding Africanisation - acknowledging some of my personal identity tags with their meanings, penalties and responsibilities. I explore Africanisation as a necessary counter-narrative embedded within the broader context of postcolonial theory in the context of higher education in South Africa. I then propose Africanisation to also be a discourse of perpetual longing for a quintessential African identity and ‘paradise lost’. In conclusion, I propose a palimpsest approach to African identity as a useful heuristic to understand (and define) identity as dynamically constructed and

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______________________________________________________________ fluid at a specific time and place where identities are marked by a multiplicity of subject positions. 3.

Locating Myself My participation in the debate on African identity as an African is not necessarily generally accepted in the broader African context due to my race, my gender and my people’s history. In this paper I, therefore, locate myself as speaking from the margins. I contribute these reflections from a position of the seeming and actual incommensurability of my gender and race in the broader discourses of masculinity and race as they intersect in the discourses on Africanisation. I am white (with most probably some mixed race ancestors) and although my family has been in Africa and specifically South Africa for many generations, my identity as an African has not yet been conclusively decided upon by many who fought against Apartheid. My race and my tribe were responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. For many Africans and South Africans I am and will remain a settler, the original ‘makwerekwere’ (outsider, foreigner). My home language, Afrikaans, is indigenous to Africa, being born from a mixture of slave, Khoisan and Dutch settler’ elements, but it also is on record that my home language has been the language of the oppressor for many years. When my tribe, the Afrikaner, decided to call themselves Afrikaners, they positively identified themselves with the continent like no other tribe or cultural formation in Africa. During the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902) nearly 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died in ‘concentration camps’ set up by the British forces as part of the broader ‘scorched earth’ policy. This however pales in comparison to the immeasurable harm caused by Apartheid to generations of people of colour, past and present. Therefore, my identification as an Afrikaner, for many, taints my participation in the debate on Africanisation. I am furthermore gay, a totally un-African notion and a particular sin within the context and claims of pure African patriarchy.2 Therefore in sharing my reflections on Africanisation, I do so from a specific personal and tribal location – which, for many, disqualifies me from taking part in the debate on African identity. In identifying myself with specific tags, I want to acknowledge identity as a temporal construct and accept the penalties and responsibilities that come with such an identity – even a fragmented and contested one. This paper is also a protest at my possible exclusion (whether actual or perceived) from the debate and as an act of defiance against feelings of meaninglessness and nihilism that has become characteristic of many Afrikaner communities in South Africa.

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Africanisation as Counter-Narrative Unisa has committed itself to be ‘the African university in the service of humanity’ and the 2015 Strategic Plan – An agenda for transformation (hereafter referred to as SP) stipulates that Unisa ‘promotes African thought, philosophy, interests and epistemology’.3 The purpose of this promotion is ‘to address the legacy of neglected and marginalised issues relevant to South Africa and the rest of Africa’.4 As such, except for being ‘located and rooted in the African context’, Unisa will strive for and promote ‘critical scholarship from an African perspective’ (italics added) so that it ‘becomes an authentic part of the global knowledge enterprise’. 5The SP continues then to state that ‘our intention is that African knowledge and knowledge systems should be developed in their own right and that they should mitigate the dominance of western canons. Through such a scholarship, we intend to contribute to a multiplicity of voices, alternative canons, and diversity in thought’.6 In the Unisa Founder’s Lecture of 2007, Professor N.B. Pityana, Vice-Chancellor of Unisa, referred to the fact that ‘higher education policies after apartheid [has failed] to provide alternative frameworks of knowledge production to those provided by [the] dominant Western knowledge system’.7 As a way forward, Pityana proposed that indigenous African knowledge systems be rehabilitated; the walls between knowledge silos to be broken down; that African educators ‘adopt innovative and creative ideas for curriculum reform’; the sharing of research and research expertise by the setting up of networks between African scholars and lastly, a new generation of academic leadership.8 Pityana closed by stating that South African ‘higher education institutions … remain largely unreconstructed… [and that] there pervades an ingrained elitism and a dominance of western cultural and intellectual hegemony’. It is therefore necessary to ‘open up at least a possibility of Africa becoming a producer of knowledge rather than a faithful reproducer of Western forms of knowledge’.9 The search for and celebration of African epistemologies, identities and cultures can be understood as a necessary counter-narrative and decentring of Western epistemological and ontological claims. Africanisation should, amongst other things, entail the questioning and interrogation of accepted (and promoted) taxonomies like ‘human rights’, ‘development’, ‘aid’, etc.10 Hoppers postulated the need for opposition to these ‘technologies of domination’. Such opposition ‘entails reconstruction of truths from the discourses of concealment of violence’, direct confrontations with these ‘technologies of domination’ and the ‘documentation and analysis of the manner in which identities were legislated, and how the physical as well as mental spaces were regulated’. 11 The postcolonial epoch in Africa signifies a deliberate attempt by Africans to describe Africanness. During the colonial period Africans were

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______________________________________________________________ described and stereotyped by the North Atlantic gaze. Colonialism produced and sustained the notion of ‘darkest Africa’ which waited for salvation and civilisation. An Africanised curriculum therefore wants to de-centre descriptions such as these and encourage African students to describe themselves without accepting Europe as the norm. This will inevitably result in higher education on the African continent ‘talking back’, shaping, inventing and encouraging counter-narratives. A postcolonial approach in curriculum development will therefore allow Unisa to address the epistemic violence embedded and perpetuated by North Atlantic epistemologies and discourses. 12 Africanisation as counter-narrative can therefore be understood and located in a mixture of cultural, political, economic, social, ontological and epistemological initiatives to celebrate the local, the particular, the distinctiveness of being African and being-in-Africa/from Africa, as illustrated in Unisa’s focus on Africanisation. The establishment, celebration and (often) reinvention of African identities, African ways of being and ways of thinking are oppositional strategies against years of being subordinated to the normativity of Western descriptions and prescriptions for ways (and classifications) of being and thinking. The questions however remain: How do white academics partake in this project? Is it possible to participate in this project and under what conditions will it be possible? While the verdict is still out on whether white people can actually call themselves ‘African’, the deeper question remains on whether, and how, white academics can participate in this counter-narrative. After many generations in Africa, I certainly consider myself to be not only in Africa, but from Africa. How do I participate in a counter-narrative while my status as African is being questioned? 5.

The Africanisation Discourse as Discourse of Perpetual Longing The act of describing ourselves also results in remembering as an archaeological project – trying to resurrect that which was lost, demolished, deliberately erased and written out of histories and curricula. Dreams of an African Renaissance therefore embody the (often selective) discovery and celebration of scientific, cultural and sociological achievements which stand equal to the discoveries and achievements of North Atlantic societies. Such discovery and celebration also results in a re-appropriation of the historical dominance of North Atlantic canons of literature, science and technology. This archaeological project aims to document the unique achievements of life on the African continent pre-colonialisation. This archaeological process of remembering is supplemented by the invention of a quintessential African culture, persona and value-system. This requires a two-fold strategy, namely to homogenise the Other and the self. The Other is represented by terms like the West, the North Atlantic or developed world, as

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______________________________________________________________ a homogenous force which disrupted and continues to disrupt life on the African continent with its stark individualism, materialism and a number of ‘abnormal’ behaviours. Reciprocally, the ‘self’ also needs to be homogenised and all differences erased in service of the belief in the existence of quintessential Africa as explored by a number of African scholars, such as Asante13 and Okumu. 14 These scholars celebrate the existence of a uniquely African philosophy, African culture and African values. In the service of this continental essentialism, the stark differences between North and South Africa, West and East African societies are negated and down-played. It is as if the project of an African Renaissance depends on presenting a homogenised front. Memory and tradition therefore serves as resistance. Old traditions are resuscitated, new ones are created and elements reminiscent of imitation of ‘Western civilisation’ are banished as being un-African. Curricula are therefore sanitised from un-African values and influences, city and street names are changed and parts of the histories of different parts of Africa are lobotomised in service of the official narrative of Africanisation.15 Participating in Africanisation as a discourse of perpetual longing is impossible for white academics as we are the quintessential other in precolonial Africa. Being an African – a Queer View My participation in the discourse on Africanisation as curriculum project, up to now, may be considered as queer, in the sense of curious or even perplexing. Not only have a questioned my own participation, I have also questioned the Africanisation discourse as a discourse of perpetual longing for a mythical Africa. My participation in Africanisation as curriculum project finally falters when my gender is considered. Being African and gay (queer) is, according to many of Africa’s politicians, religious and community leaders, incommensurable. The negation of the existence of pre-colonial and postcolonial same-sex relations in Africa has been proclaimed ‘by politicians, scholars, and lay people alike, and is often accompanied by the similarly insidious accusation that homosexuality is a ‘western perversion’ imposed upon or adopted by African populations’.16 Contra to these negations, Amory refers to a range of research findings reporting that there ‘is a long history of diverse African peoples engaging in same-sex relations’.17 Epprecht in thought-provoking essays regarding indigenous homosexualities in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, postulates that ‘the invisibility of indigenous homosexualities has … complex origins’ and that the current negation of the pre-colonial existence of same-sex relations should be understood and investigated against the ‘dominant ideology of masculinity’.18 6.

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______________________________________________________________ Although the reference to ‘queer’ in the title of this paper firstly refers to the nature of my participation as white male and secondly to my participation in this discourse as queer, I thirdly am of the opinion that queer identity theory provide some crucial perspectives on (and for) the construction of an African identity. Sumara and Davis propose that sexuality, and implicitly all identity constructs, as ‘culturally produced, experienced, and expressed’. 19Britzman describes sexual identity ‘as an unstable, shifting, and volatile construct, a contradictory and unfinalised social relation’.20 Sumara and Davis suggest that ‘[o]ne’s sexuality … is always structured by the various narratives and experiences of gender, race, ethnicity, access to resources, physical capacities, and so on’.21 If identity per se is always a temporal construct flowing from and perpetuating hegemonic assumptions and beliefs embedded in race, gender, cultural and social-economic relations, then the Africanisation debate may benefit from a more critical appraisal of the origins, functions and impacts of identity constructs. I therefore propose a third option for defining Africanness which involves a palimpsest approach where we aim not to remove the different layers of historical and contextual developments in order to discover the ‘original’ or ‘essential’ African identity (as proposed by an archaeological approach); but to take the present gestalt at face value and see it as a starting place for defining identity as dynamically constructed and fluid at a specific time and place where identities are marked by a multiplicity of subject positions. Any other approach to defining a quintessential African (or for that matter any) identity result in individuals finding that their different identities become, depending on the context, incommensurable to the dominant criterion.22 I propose, then, that the African identity can neither be fixed nor is it singular; rather, it should be seen as a constantly changing relational multiplicity. But during the course of this flux, identities do assume specific patterns, as in a kaleidoscope, against particular sets of personal, social and historical circumstances. 23 The question of identity remains a recurring theme in established states such as France or Australia, and in new geopolitical groupings such as the European Union or the envisaged United States of Africa. In describing ourselves, we are also, de facto, describing those who are not like us. Criteria for inclusion also, per se, exclude. Inclusion can mean devouring the Other to become like us or exclusion by exorcising and the vomiting out of the Other.24 As recent histories in Germany, Rwanda, Kenya, Kosovo and Australia show, the criteria for belonging can change overnight based on race, tribe, religion or political affiliation. In a moment you can become an ‘Other’ by virtue of your race, ethnicity, gender, language, dress-code or

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______________________________________________________________ nationality. Let us therefore be careful when and how we describe ourselves. 7.

Conclusion Each of my identities matter to me and to the different relationships I find myself in a specific context and time. At times, one identity overshadows the others with its penalties, responsibilities and meanings. In this paper I attempted to contribute to the current debates on Africanisation and the African identity from a specific personal location in a specific context and time. I close this reflective exploration with a quotation from Appiah (1995:108). He says: If an African identity is to empower us, so it seems to me, what is required is not so much that we throw out falsehood but that we acknowledge first that race and history and metaphysics do not enforce an identity: that we can choose, within broad limits set by ecological, political, and economic realities what it will mean to be African in the coming years. 25 If I understand Appiah correctly, it would seem as if he does not negate the role of critical discourse in discussing identity, but that he adds to the critical discourse by stating that ‘race and history and metaphysics do not enforce an identity’(emphasis added). Identity, and the African identity, is and should not be determined or enforced by race, history or even metaphysics, but identity is a choice within broader ecological, political and economic realities. In this paper I have, hopefully, contributed to understanding Africanisation as curriculum project as a necessary counter-narrative. The challenge however remains on how I can partake in this counter-narrative without subscribing to Africanisation as a discourse of perpetual longing. The legitimacy of my participation depends, however, on the acceptance of my gender and race as integral parts of my identity as an African, by birth and by choice.

Notes 1

Chinua Achebe in an interview with K.A. Appiah, 1995, pp. 103. M. Epprecht, The ‘unsaying’ of indigenous homosexuality in Zimbabwe: mapping a blind spot in an African masculinity, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24(4), 1998, pp. 631. Also see M. Epprecht, Male-male sexuality in 2

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______________________________________________________________ Lesotho: two conversations, The Journal of Men’s Studies, 10(3), 2002, pp. 373-389. 3 University of South Africa, 2015 Strategic Plan – An agenda for transformation, Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2007, pp.5. 4 ibid. pp.5 5 ibid. pp.6 6 ibid. pp.6 7 N.B. Pityana, Pathways to excellence in higher education: ten years of higher education reform in South Africa, unpublished manuscript, annual Founders’ Lecture, 10 September, Unisa, 2007, p.4. 8 ibid. pp. 6-8. 9 ibid. p.12. 10 C.A.O. Hoppers, The centre-periphery in knowledge production in the twenty-first century, Compare, 30(3), 2000, p.284. 11 ibid. p.288. 12 C.A.O. Hoppers, Structural violence as a constraint to African policy formation in the 1990s. Repositioning education in international relations, Studies in Comparative and International Education, 43, Institute of International Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 1998. 13 M.K. Asante, Afrocentricity, the theory of social change, Buffalo, N.Y., Amulefi Publishing Company, 1980. 14 W.A.J.Okumu, The African renaissance: history, significance, and strategy, Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 2002. 15 R.S. Esbenshade, Remembering to forget: memory, history, national identity in post war East-Central Europe, Representations 49, 1995, pp. 7296. Esbenshade describes various attempts of re-visioning democracy and citizenship in a context permeated by memories and ‘counter-memories’, ‘counter-narratives’ and name-changes as new regimes tried to ‘lobotomise’ memory in Prague in 1989. 16 D.B. Amory, ‘Homosexuality’ in Africa: Issues and Debates', A Journal of Opinion, Commentaries in African Studies: Essays about African Social Change and the Meaning of Our Professional Work, 25(1), 1995, p.5 17 ibid. p.5 18 M. Epprecht, The ‘unsaying’ of indigenous homosexuality in Zimbabwe: mapping a blind spot in an African masculinity, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24(4), 1998, pp. 631. Also see M. Epprecht, Male-male sexuality in Lesotho: two conversations, The Journal of Men’s Studies, 10(3), 2002, pp. 373-389. 19 ibid. p.191. 20 D. Britzman, What is this thing called love? Taboo: The Journal of Cultural Studies and Education, 1(Spring), 1995, p.68.

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D. Sumara, D., & B. Davis, Interrupting heteronormativity: toward a queer curriculum theory, Curriculum Inquiry, 29(2), 1999, pp. 196. 22 T. Boellstorff, Between religion and desire: being Muslim and Gay in Indonesia, American Anthropologist, 107(4), 2005, pp. 575-585. 23 A. Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting identities, London and New York, Routledge, 1996. 24 G. Biesta, The community of those who have nothing in common: education and the language of responsibility, Interchange, 35(3), 2004, pp. 313. 25 K. A. Appiah, 1995:108.

Bibliography Amory, D.B., ‘Homosexuality’ in Africa: issues and debates. A Journal of Opinion, Commentaries in African Studies: Essays about African Social Change and the Meaning of Our Professional Work, 25(1), 1997, pp. 5-10. Appiah, K.A. African Identities. Social postmodernism. Beyond identity politics, edited by L. Nicholson & S. Seidman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 103-115. Biesta, G., The community of those who have nothing in common: education and the language of responsibility, Interchange, 35(3), 2004, pp. 307-324. Boellstorff, T., Between religion and desire: being Muslim and Gay in Indonesia, American Anthropologist, 107(4), 2005, pp. 575-585. Brah, A., Cartographies of diaspora. Contesting identities, London and New York, Routledge, 1996. Britzman, D., What is this thing called love? Taboo: The Journal of Cultural Studies and Education, 1 (Spring), 1995, pp. 65-93. Epprecht, M, The ‘unsaying’ of indigenous homosexuality in Zimbabwe: mapping a blind spot in an African masculinity, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24(4), 1998, pp. 631-651. Epprecht, M., Male-male sexuality in Lesotho: two conversations, The Journal of Men’s Studies, 10(3), 2002, pp. 373-389.

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______________________________________________________________ Hoppers, C.A.O., Structural violence as a constraint to African policy formation in the 1990s. Repositioning education in international relations, Studies in Comparative and International Education, 43, Institute of International Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 1998. –––, The centre-periphery in knowledge production in the twenty-first century, Compare, 30(3), 2000, pp. 283-291. Esbenshade, R.S., Remembering to forget: memory, history, national identity in post war East-Central Europe, Representations, 49, 1995, pp. 72-96. Pityana, N.B., Pathways to excellence in higher education: ten years of higher education reform in South Africa, unpublished manuscript, Annual Founders’ Lecture, 10 September, Unisa, 2007. Sumara, D. & Davis, B., Interrupting heteronormativity: toward a queer curriculum theory, Curriculum Inquiry, 29(2), 1999, pp. 191-208. University of South Africa, 2015 Strategic Plan – An agenda for transformation, Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2007. Paul Prinsloo is an Education Consultant at the University of South Africa. His interests are wide and eclectic and include curriculum theory, higher education policy development and implementation, social identity theories, art history, religious studies, corporate and planetary citizenship.

Recognition as Negotiation Giorgio Bertolotti Abstract Two widespread objections to the politics of recognition contend that (i) it reifies identity, and (ii) it promotes a type of conflict that threatens to destroy society. The aim of the paper is to discuss these criticisms, acknowledging their force but resisting their conclusion, at least in relation to an important model of recognition, namely Hegel’s. With respect to (i), it is often complained that the politics of recognition start with a dialogical notion of identity but end up supporting cultural monologism. I claim, by contrast, that the Hegelian model is quite different from such a politics, since its strength is to turn into reciprocal recognition what initially was an apparently irreconcilable conflict. With respect to (ii), the point is rather to show how disputes over identities, undoubtedly prima facie cases of non-divisible conflicts, behave according to the model. While they start as conflicts of the ‘either-or’ kind, and seem to leave no room for compromise, they become divisible along the process, and are bound by their own ‘logic’ to reach for a negotiated solution. No one, it is suggested, has understood this particular ‘logic of recognition’ better than Hegel. Key Words: Conflict, Hegel, identity, multiculturalism, negotiation, recognition. ***** 1. The main task of this paper is to bring considerations that are familiar, though by no means uncontroversial, among Hegelian scholars to bear on questions concerning multiculturalism and its philosophical foundations1. More specifically, I intend to discuss two influential objections to the politics of recognition, as it is often called, that underwrites many forms of multiculturalism, and show how an appreciation of what Hegel was driving at with his concept of Anerkennung (Recognition) may constitute a productive way of meeting these objections. The aim is not to defend multicultural theories or policies2, but to protect what I take to be a genuine insight on which they rest, namely the idea that recognition both of equality and of distinctness is - to use Charles Taylor’s apt expression - a ‘vital human need’3. The two criticisms I shall be concerned with claim, respectively, that (i) the politics of recognition tends to reify identity, thus encouraging separation rather than social interaction across differences; and (ii) it favours non-divisible over divisible conflicts, thus threatening to tear society apart

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______________________________________________________________ instead of promoting social integration. I want to acknowledge the force of these objections, without conceding, though, that the theory of recognition, properly understood, is vulnerable to them. The qualification ‘properly understood’ is, of course, crucial, for whilst most current versions of such a politics are indeed guilty of the charges, I believe that the Hegelian model is not, and that coming to see this is coming to see the lines of a more promising strategy for dealing with many problems in this area. A quick caveat: Although I have talked and shall be talking of an Hegelian model, my concern here is neither exegetical nor antiquarian; in a sense, it is not even with the historical Hegel; rather, it is with some ways of understanding the ‘logic’ of recognition that can be viewed as elaborations of ways of making sense of what Hegel was saying on this topic. 2. It may help to start with a highly general and almost trivial point about the politics of recognition. I am going to read it into a remark by Axel Honneth, a theorist who is justly famous for having installed the concept of recognition at the centre of his social philosophy4. Commenting on the transition from a conception of justice understood as the elimination of social or economic inequalities to a conception of justice in which notions like ‘dignity’ and ‘respect’ figure as its central categories, Honneth writes: ‘For some time now this influential idea of justice […] seems to have been replaced by a new idea, one with political effects that are initially much less unambiguous’5. That seems to me exactly right. Surely the least one can say about the consequences of the politics inspired by the new idea of recognition - with multiculturalism standing as a particularly prominent example - is precisely that they are ‘much less unambiguous’. But if that is so, we might want to know why its consequences have this feature. I would like to work towards an answer in what will mostly be a diagnostic spirit, namely, by gradually tracing the effects of the politics of recognitions that Honneth describes as ‘much less unambiguous’ (compared to the effects of the politics of redistribution) back to their sources. 3. In the text from which I was quoting a moment ago, Honneth’s remark comes right before his own reading of the move from the idea of redistribution to the idea of recognition. Honneth argues that this move can be accounted for in two rather different ways. It can be viewed as the result of ‘political disillusionment’, once it became clear that the prospects of effective economic redistribution were vanishing; from this angle, recognition would be the less demanding concept that political philosophy retreats to when hopes in the availability of redistribution are lost. Or the move can be interpreted as the product of ‘increased moral sensibility’, that is to say, as a positive achievement. From this other perspective, it does not look like a retreat at all, but rather as a fundamental extension of what is

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______________________________________________________________ encompassed by a mature idea of social justice: the move from redistribution to recognition would be a consequence of the fact that we have come to realise that behaviours that harm people in their self-esteem are to be called unjust no less than behaviours that, say, limit their freedom of action. This second reading is Honneth’s favourite, but it seems worthy of consideration in its own right. Its interest lies in the implicit suggestion that a politics of recognition is - no doubt among other things - what is requested by this ‘increased moral sensibility’. Indeed, we might say that, on this interpretation, such a politics purports to be just a theoretical transcription of this sensibility, i.e., of a sensibility that is presented as a good thing. And this specification is important, for it brings into relief that what gets transcribed is not primarily an ambiguous phenomenon - say, the tendency of contemporary societies to internally split along cultural dimensions - but is a wider, more encompassing view of human dignity - a view everyone ought to be willing to agree on. Yet, even if we were to accept this reading, we would still have to admit that the transcription is neither linear nor without shadows. For especially on the political terrain, it appears to produce results or have consequences - the ‘much less unambiguous effects’ mentioned earlier whose desirability is highly questionable6. And the point I take from Honneth is precisely that, prior to any specification of these effects, what deserves attention in the first place is the very fact that the new idea of recognition carries on its sleeves consequences that are ambiguous. But now precisely this fact is made all the more puzzling by the contrast between the increased moral sensibility - the good thing - and the political outcomes - the bad or ambiguous thing. How can the former bring about the latter? 4. A central tenet of virtually any politics of recognition is the idea that our identity as individuals or as groups is partly shaped by recognition (or non-recognition). In this sense, recognition is, as we mentioned before, ‘not just a courtesy we owe people. It is a vital human need’7. If we agree with this recognition-dependent conception of identity, it is tempting to follow Taylor and many others in thinking of this idea as what ultimately justifies demands of recognition at the social and political level. To take an example from the recent past, the riots of November 2005 in the French banlieues can be viewed, at least partially, as fuelled by a demand of recognition: an explosion of anger by young people who were born in France and yet felt they were suffering an ‘internal exclusion’ from the social system, which they accused not only of failing to provide them with job opportunities (the unemployment rate in these suburbs were significantly higher than the national average) but also of humiliating them (as when they were called ‘racaille’, scum, a term with racial overtones)8. Suppose we accept this line of reasoning, which takes us from the recognition-dependent conception of identity to its political implications.

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______________________________________________________________ Then the problem of the previous section can be stated like this: either the idea is fine, and what generates troubles is merely its political transcription, or there is something in the idea itself that is problematic and that accounts for the ambiguous political consequences that its transcription somehow produces. Understandingly enough, social and political theorists have been busy debating the pros and cons of the politics of recognition mainly in terms of the first alternative, considering the link between identity and recognition expressed in that idea as fundamentally unproblematic. By contrast, the suggestion I wish to make is that we do better to look more closely at how the link in question is construed, for it may turn out that quite a lot hinges on our understanding of the initial steps. 5. To delve into this issue, I shall discuss two more specific and potentially devastating objections which have been levelled - one directly, the other by implication - at the politics of recognition9. Here’s how Nancy Fraser introduces the first: The routes such struggles [for recognition] take often serve not to promote respectful interaction within increasingly multicultural contexts, but to drastically simplify and reify group identities. They tend, rather, to encourage separatism, intolerance and chauvinism, patriarchalism and authoritarianism. I shall call this the problem of reification10. I take the philosophical essence of her critique to be the exposition of a dramatic clash between the actual results of the politics of recognition and its stated aims; if she is right, this politics appears to be a remarkable instance of the slogan, ‘What one wants and what one is going to get are two different things’. No doubt the clash is often real, and I agree with Fraser that proponents of the politics of recognition should worry about it a lot more than they do. I also agree that it is not sufficient to merely expose the clash: we need to understand what makes it possible. This is particularly urgent if we are upholding the assumption that the politics of recognition purports to be the transcription of an increased moral sensibility, for in this case the problem is to realise how something laudable like acknowledging a broader dimension of human dignity can be transfigured or perverted into something not so laudable as encouraging ‘separatism, intolerance and chauvinism, patriarchalism and authoritarianism’, where the latter are crude but not unjustified specifications of what Honneth was more softly calling ‘much less unambiguous effects’.

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______________________________________________________________ 6. Realising the need for a diagnosis, Fraser offers one. On her analysis, all politics of recognition can be viewed as developing out of the same matrix, which she explicitly traces back to Hegel: The usual approach to the politics of recognition - what I shall call the ‘identity model’ - starts from the Hegelian idea that identity is constructed dialogically, through a process of mutual recognition. According to Hegel, recognition designates an ideal reciprocal relation between subjects, in which each sees the other both as its equal and also as separate from it. This relation is constitutive for subjectivity: one becomes an individual subject only by virtue of recognising, and being recognised by, another subject. Recognition from others is thus essential to the development of a sense of self. To be denied recognition or to be ‘misrecognised’ - is to suffer both a distortion of one’s relation to one’s self and an injury to one’s identity11. In describing this ‘identity model’, Fraser remains neutral, for she appears to think that the troubles do not originate with this level - for all she says, the ‘Hegelian idea’ might be perfectly all right - but at a later stage, when it is transposed onto the social and political terrain - the home game of multiculturalism. It is here that the idea seems to undergo a transformation, for now the emphasis is no longer on the intersubjective construction of one’s identity but has shifted on ‘the need to elaborate and display an authentic, self-affirming and self-generated collective identity’12. In effect, it is more than a mere matter of emphasis. The very meaning of ‘identity’ has changed: the dialogical conception has given way to a monological model, in which group identity demands recognition from the dominant culture or society, but takes itself to be internally self-generating - perhaps with tradition, authority, etc. accounting for this self-generation. It is as if the initial idea gets lost in the process, and the later stage works with a conception that is oblivious of that very same notion of identity that nevertheless sustains its own demand of recognition. On Fraser’s opinion, what is going on here is an illegitimate equation of the politics of recognition to the politics of identity: Where this equation occurs, the clash between official aims and actual results is underway. This is as close as her criticism gets to an effective diagnosis of the problem. I believe it is not close enough, and shall try to justify this belief in a moment. But I want first to draw a further consequence from Fraser’s analysis. For a connection between Hegel’s idea and contemporary politics of recognition is that the former contains the germs of a conception of the social bond that the latter aims at exploiting - although, it appears, rather

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______________________________________________________________ unsuccessfully. Yet, what her analysis suggests is really that there are two such conceptions: one dialogical, based on the idea that to call something a self is to locate it in an social space of mutual recognition, and one monological, in which a group can self-generate its identity, and only after it has done so can demand recognition - now a one-sided recognition - from the outside. As I read it, the ‘problem of reification’ is the problem that arises when these two conceptions join forces. When this happens, when identity particularly group or collective identity - is reified, Fraser asserts that the politics of recognition is in effect rejecting its own Hegelian premises. 7. But is this true? It has become obvious to equate the thesis that one’s identity is dependent on others’ recognition to the thesis that one’s identity is constructed dialogically, much as it has become natural to be convinced that the equation already was working with Hegel - or even that it originated with him. But in fact the two theses are quite different, and the conviction seems poorly justified in attributing to Hegel an equation for which there is remarkably little evidence in his writings. Suppose, then, we deny that those premises are Hegelian. At first sight this looks like a pretty marginal point in relation to the sort of questions that Fraser’s critique of contemporary politics of recognition is meant to address. Still, can we learn something valuable from this denial? I think so, on three counts: (i) Fraser says that the politics of recognition starts from Hegelian premises to the effect that identity is dialogically constructed, and ends up supporting cultural monologism. She is probably right as far as the politics of recognition are concerned, but misleading in attributing these premises to Hegel. For it is essential to Hegel’s treatment of recognition that identity, and more generally full-fledged self-consciousness, be not dialogically constructed. Both in his Jena pre-Phenomenology writings and in the Phenomenology itself, Hegel insists that two individuals who want to be mutually recognised must do harm to each other: conflict cannot be evaded nor substituted by a dialogical exchange; it must be real. In other words, conflict is not to be understood as some idiosyncratic form of recognition, but as the condition of possibility of recognition; unlike contemporary varieties, Hegel’s model is, if anything, polemological, surely not dialogical. (ii) The previous point sets the agenda. Once the polemological character of his model is appreciated, the task we should see Hegel as setting for himself is to show by what intrinsic logic the process of recognition unfolds in such a way as to gradually bring conflict under control, without ever falling under the illusion that it can permanently free itself of this conflictual dimension. The general idea is that we are dealing not with a simple relation but with a fairly complex process: self-consciousness requires recognition (in the sense of being recognised), but this in turn requires

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______________________________________________________________ recognition (in the sense of recognising), thus what really is required ultimately is mutual recognition: a symmetric condition that can issue out of an asymmetric point of departure. What is especially interesting about this model is that its progression is from conflict to dialogue, or at any rate reciprocal recognition, where politics of recognition of the sort Fraser discusses appears to be bound to go the opposite, and less promising, direction, turning into conflicts what, by its own lights, ought to be just dialogue. (iii) Within the Hegelian framework, identity shows up not as something rigid, but as a dynamic element that lives and feeds itself on social interaction. For it is not just the case that one’s identity is partly shaped by the attitude of others; Hegel’s claim is that full-fledged subjectivity - to be so much as a self, and to have an identity - is itself a social achievement, something one cannot achieve by oneself. And there is absolutely no reason to think that when this view is transposed at the collective level it is no longer valid: indeed, selves and the various communities of which they are members are instituted in, and in virtue of, the same process. If we regard these features as somehow distinctive of the Hegelian model, not only can we appreciate how different Hegel’s premises are from those of contemporary politics of recognition, but we can also begin to realise that they contain the seeds of a ‘logic’ of recognition that is worth exploring. To look a little more closely into this matter, though, we need to discuss another important objection to the politics of recognition, namely the charge of promoting a form of social conflict governed by a ‘logic’ that appears to undermine the basis of social integration. 8. This second objection is derived by implication from Albert Hirschman’s critique of the appeal to community spirit in political philosophy13. The question with which he was concerned was this: ‘Is it possible to distinguish between two varieties of social conflict, those that leave behind a positive residue of integration and those that tear society apart?’14 Hirschman thinks not only that it is possible, as others have argued, but that it is necessary, since we should try to promote the former and avoid the latter. How can we draw the distinction? His proposal is to take divisibility as the criterion: there are conflicts, like those characteristic of market society, that for the fact of being over the distribution of resources, ‘tend to be divisible conflicts over more or less, in contrast to conflicts of the either-or or nondivisible category that are characteristic of societies split along rival ethnic, linguistic, or religious lines’15. In general, whenever a conflict is over a matter of identity, it is likely to be a nondivisible conflict, for identity is not something that can lend itself to be measured and distributed; it seems rather something that come in a single package and must be accepted or rejected as

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______________________________________________________________ such, with no room for compromise. And insofar as politics of recognition are all implicated with identity issues, there seems to be no doubt that they fall under this category. Given Hirschman’s use of the distinction, this is bad news, for it implies that such politics favour a form of conflict that destroys society. That is to say, the logic characteristic of recognition - the either-or sort of logic – turns out to be such that, far from being something a mature politics should inherit, represents instead a serious obstacle for it, since this logic is apt to corrode the very same social bond that it should promote. 9. One natural way of rescuing the politics of recognition would be to argue that nondivisible conflicts, as characterised by Hirschman, are not as damaging as they appear. I do not think the prospects for this operation look good, but I am not going to discuss this here. Rather, I want to show that Hirschman’s distinction does not apply to at least one case of conflicts over identities, namely the Hegelian struggle for recognition. Prima facie, Hegel’s dialectics of recognition, especially in the paradigmatic figure of the Master/Servant dialectics, is as good an example of nondivisible conflict as can be had. Their struggle is described exactly as a clash between two totalities allowing for no compromise but the destruction of one of the two sides. Yet, it is not necessary to analytically rehearse the entire dialectical process to know that its result is not the killing of one part by the other, but a more complex relation between them. And if we avoid the mistake of thinking that this dialectics issues in the simple overturning of the initial relation, i.e., in the servant’s victory, we can appreciate that what really is achieved at the end of the struggle is a demand for reciprocal recognition. For in order to be recognised, self-consciousness finds itself necessitated to recognise the other self-consciousness, or more accurately to recognise the other as worth conceding its recognition. Now, all this can be translated salva veritate in this way: conflict over recognition, i.e. the struggle between the two self-consciousnesses, starts off as a nondivisible conflict, yet it ends up as a divisible one, in which each part must give away something to the other. The conflict becomes, so to speak, divisible along the way. How is that possible? I think the answer can be found in the peculiar ‘logic’ of recognition that Hegel brought to light. I also think that a substantial contribution toward a better understanding of this ‘logic’ comes from Brandom’s appropriation of the Hegelian discourse16. On his reading, Hegel’s saying that selves are synthesised by mutual recognition means that ‘to be a self is to be taken or treated as one by those one takes or treats as one: to be recognised by those one recognises’17. This is a social process on two counts: first, because one cannot be a self in isolation; secondly, because ‘only part of what is needed is within the power of the candidate self’18. This second aspect is crucial for the present discussion, since it explains why

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______________________________________________________________ recognition can shift from being nondivisible - a matter of all or nothing - to being divisible - a matter of more or less. The point is that ‘it is up to the individual who to recognise, but it is not up to the individual whether those individuals then in turn recognise the original recogniser’; and yet, ‘only when this ‘movement’ is completed is a self constituted’19. Brandom offers the following illustration of this Hegelian reasoning: For instance, it is up to me whom I recognise as a good chess player. I can settle for recognising any old wood pusher who can play a legal game, or I can set my standards so high that only Grand Masters qualify. But it is not then up to me (certainly not up to me in the same sense) whether those I recognise as good players recognise me as a good player. If I’ve set my sights low enough, it will be easy to qualify. But if my aspirations for the sort of self I want to be, and so to be recognised as, are higher, it will be correspondingly more difficult for me to earn the recognition of those I recognise20. What is especially important about this structure is that by the same token authority is exercised and ceded: recognition is obtained and conceded. In Brandom’s Hegelian terms, this amounts to saying that in exercising my independence, I am at the same time ‘dependent on the attitudes of others, and the others, reciprocally dependent on my recognition, display a corresponding moment of independence in their attitudes’21. 10. If that is so, the ‘logic’ governing the process of recognition eschews the sorting of conflicts into good and bad that Hirschman had suggested. For not only are we dealing with an indivisible conflict that becomes divisible along the way, as I claimed earlier, but the logic of this conflict is exactly not a matter of all or nothing but rather a matter of compromise. The fact that, on this reading, Hegel uncovers, and that was by no means evident at the outset, is that recognition is intrinsically a process of negotiation. And so obviously are the identities that get synthesised by means of it22. Moreover, since your demand of recognition only makes sense in a context in which you recognise the other, or else the other’s recognition is worth nothing to you, this bargaining process is self-adjusting: in principle, the more you get, the less the other gets, but in effect the more ambitious your demand of recognition is, the wider must be the recognition that you must concede to the other, or else her recognition is worth less than you need. So if you want recognition you always have to negotiate it, but you also better not be too greedy. Unfortunately, this seems a lesson that contemporary politics of recognition has not yet fully understood.

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Notes 1 A similar though much more elaborated attempt can be found in chapter 8 of R. B. Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008. 2 For some recent developments of the political and philosophical debate concerning multiculturalism, see the essays collected in A. S. Laden and D. Owen (eds.), Multiculturalism and Political Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. 3 C. Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Multiculturalism, A. Gutmann (ed.), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994, pp. 26. 4 For a book-length presentation of the program, cf. A. Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996. 5 A. Honneth, ‘Recognition and Justice. Outline of a Plural Theory of Justice’, Acta Sociologica, vol. 47, 2004, pp. 351. 6 For a somehow related criticism, cf. chapter 3 of S. Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. 7 C. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 25-26. 8 For an extended analysis of the riots, cf. E. Balibar, ‘Uprisings in the Banlieues’, Constellations, vol. 14, 2007, pp. 47-71. 9 Note that the purpose here is not to assess whether these criticisms are correct with respect to current versions of the politics of recognition, but to understand whether the drawbacks of this politics that they signal are unavoidable. 10 N. Fraser, ‘Rethinking Recognition’, New Left Review, n. 3, 2000, pp. 108. Cf. also her Justice Interruptus, Routledge, London 1997. 11 ibid., pp. 109. 12 ibid., pp. 112. 13 A. O. Hirschman, ‘Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Society’, Political Theory, vol. 22, 1994, pp. 203-218. 14 ibid., pp. 210. 15 ibid., pp. 213. The connection with the politics of recognition and with multiculturalism is suggested by the author, who on the same page goes on to note: “Nondivisible conflicts have recently also become more prominent in the older democracies and particularly in the United States, as a result of the importance assumed by such issues as abortion and multiculturalism”. 16 Cf. R. Brandom, ‘Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism: Negotiation and Administration in Hegel’s Account of the Structure and Content of Conceptual Norms’, European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7,

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______________________________________________________________ 1999, pp. 164-189. This paper of Brandom’s is part of a broader interpretation of Hegel which is still in progress. 17 ibid., pp. 169. 18 ibid., pp. 169. 19 ibid., pp. 169. 20 Ibid., pp. 169-70. 21 Ibid., pp. 172. 22 Note that it is at least as plausible to generalize this “logic” to the demand of recognition of groups or communities as it is to surmise that at that level another “logic” would take on.

Bibliography Balibar, E., ‘Uprisings in the Banlieues’. Constellations, vol. 14, 2007, pp. 47-71. Benhabib, S., The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. Brandom, R., ‘Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism: Negotiation and Administration in Hegel’s Account of the Structure and Content of Conceptual Norms’. European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7, 1999, pp. 164189. Fraser, N., Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition. Routledge, London, 1997. –––, ‘Rethinking Recognition’. New Left Review, n. 3, 2000, pp. 107-120. Fraser, N., Honneth, A., Redistribution or Recognition? A PoliticalPhilosophical Exchange. Verso, London-New York, 2003. Hirschman, A. O., ‘Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Society’. Political Theory, vol. 22, 1994, pp. 203-218. Honneth, H., 1992, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996. –––, ‘Recognition and Justice. Outline of a Plural Theory of Justice’. Acta Sociologica, vol. 47, 2004, pp. 351-364.

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______________________________________________________________ Laden, A. S. and Owen, D. (eds.), Multiculturalism and Political Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. Pippin, R. B., Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008. Taylor, C., 1994, ‘The Politics of Recognition’. Multiculturalism, A. Gutmann (ed.), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994. Giorgio Bertolotti is Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Milano Bicocca. His research focuses on the theory of meaning, interpretation and truth, and on social accounts of intentionality and identity.

The Dominican Second Generation: Creation of a Subaltern Identity Julia Meszaros Abstract Dominican immigrants constitute the fourth largest group of Latino/Hispanic immigrants in the 1990 US Census. While Dominicans constitute a large Hispanic immigrant population, most of the research has focused on Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans. For Caribbean immigrants, particularly Dominicans, race and colour have played an integral role in new formulations of cultural identities in the receiving country of the US. The experiences of Dominican immigrants with racial constructions in the US are often ambiguous, since many immigrants have African phenotype markers of ‘race’ but also speak Spanish. Dominicans trace their racial lineage to African, Spanish and Taino sources and recognise a multitude of mixed racial combinations on a continuum of race based upon phenotype, facial characteristics, and socioeconomic status. ‘Blackness’ is associated with Haitians, and even the darkest skinned Dominican considers themselves indio oscuro or dark Indian versus black. The dominant discourse surrounding the Dominican national identity focuses on its Spanish, white and Catholic heritage, essentially ignoring contributions of the African populations. While Dominicans do not consider themselves ‘black’ at home, in the United States the racial continuum is couched in terms of a binary system, altering their racial identity. The rule of hypodescent and the binary nature of racial stratification in the United States categorise mixed race people with the minority race in popular discourse. Dominican immigrants must re-imagine their racial identities within the US binary of black/white racial categories. Many first and secondgeneration immigrants chose to play up their Hispanic heritage in order to distance themselves from the African American community and the negative consequences associated with ‘blackness’ in the US. The second generation of immigrants often embraces the hip-hop culture of African Americans in a manner that resists the racial classifications of the dominant society. Key Words: Dominican, subaltern, identity construction, racial identification ***** An increasing number of immigrants to the US emigrate from Latin America, and they are challenging the traditional white/black dichotomies of the racial discourse in the US. Afro-Latino immigrants and their descendants provide a complex challenge to the US racial system, by complicating

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______________________________________________________________ popular ascriptions assigned to the pan-ethnic categories of Latino and Hispanic. Dominicans constitute the largest immigrant group in New York City and yet face the highest poverty rates of any other Latino group. Considering their largely African and mulatto heritage (over 90%), the phenotype (the entirety of physical traits that a person possesses, such as hair colour, skin colour or eye shape) of Dominican immigrants and their descendants places them into the bottom of the racialised American labour hierarchy. The second generation of Dominican immigrants is creating a subaltern, oppositional identity, infused with numerous aspects of hip hop and urban youth culture, in response to the racialisation and discrimination they experience from the dominant groups in society. Bhabha defines subaltern groups as, ‘oppressed, minority groups whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group: subaltern social groups were also in a position to subvert the authority of those who had hegemonic power’.1 Bhabha’s definition recognises the interplay of domination and resistance that Other groups have with the dominant group. While dominant groups may oppress and denigrate the Other in order to define themselves, the Other can resist and challenge the definitions of the dominant group. The Dominican subaltern identity challenges the dominant US discourse by problematising prevailing conceptions of blackness, ethnicity and race. Racial constructions in the Dominican Republic inform this subaltern identity, but in relation to the racial constructions the second generation encounters in the US. The subaltern Dominican identity embraces elements of hip hop culture but also incorporates important cultural aspects of ‘Dominicanness’, such as Spanish. Ultimately, the subaltern identity of the Dominican second generation allows for inter-ethnic political coalitions based upon common urban struggles shared with other minority communities. While blacks and mulattos account for ninety percent of the Dominican Republic’s population, Dominicans trace their lineage to Spanish, Taino and African roots, even though the aboriginal population of the Hispaniola was largely exterminated by the end of the Sixteenth Century.2 By the end of the Eighteenth Century, mulattos and free blacks became the dominant group in society, displacing Creoles, Tainos and African slave populations.3 Despite the significant African descent of large portions of the population, the Dominican State privileges both its white Hispanic descent and indigenous descent in creation of a national identity. In fact, the darkest skinned Dominican is never considered black by the Dominican state or the majority of Dominican society; that category is reserved to describe Haitians.4 Indio oscuro, meaning dark Indian, is the racial classification of the darkest skinned Dominicans.5 The state classifies most residents as Indio, privileging the indigenous Taino lineage over the African lineage.6 In the 1980 Dominican census, 16% of the population identified as white, 73% identified as Indio and 11% identified as black.7 The term mulatto is rarely

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______________________________________________________________ used, demonstrating the distance the state maintains from ‘blackness’ in constructing its official racial identifications. The construction of Dominican identity has been in opposition to the black Haitian Other since Hispaniola was divided into separate French and Spanish colonies. The two countries have maintained a tenuous co-existence on the island of Hispaniola. On the Haitian side of the island, the first successful slave revolt in history established the first independent black republic in the New World in 1804. Naturally, the Haitian revolution called into question the legitimacy of slavery as an institution in countries all over the Western Hemisphere and provoked terror in the hearts of slave owners. Nineteenth Century discourse focused on the degenerate slave Haitians and many nations refused to recognise the Haitian state’s legitimacy. During the Haitian Revolution, Haitian troops invaded Santo Domingo and massacred Dominican residents when they were forced to retreat to Haiti. The elite of Santa Domingo viewed the Haitian revolution as dangerous to their hegemony on their side of Hispaniola and the massacres of Dominican rural residents during the Haitian retreat angered the rural Dominican population, creating a legacy of distrust. The Haitians occupied the Dominican side of Hispaniola from 1822-1844 and this occupation had an enduring impact on the construction of the Dominican nation-state and national identity.8 Numerous failed Haitian military attempts to regain the full Island territory between 1844 and 1855 further entrenched a construction of the nation in opposition to the Haitian Other.9 During Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorial regime in the twentieth century, the state promoted a pro-Hispanic and anti-Haitian discourse that served to distinguish the Dominican nation from their black neighbours. The nationalist discourse focused on portraying the Haitian Other as the antithesis of Dominican national identity.10 Duany argues, ‘If Dominicans were supposed to be white, Haitians were black; if Dominicans were Hispanic, Haitians were Creole; and if Dominicans were Catholic, Haitians were Voodoo practitioners’.11 Haitians were portrayed as lacking important elements of civilization, depraved and animalistic. The extreme poverty of Haiti (it is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere) created a large migrant flow along the border regions between the two countries. Most Haitian migrants worked under slave-like conditions on Dominican sugar and coffee plantations. Trujillo was able to massacre 15,000 of these migrants in 1937 and portray the incident as a nationalist victory over the degenerating influences of the Haitian Other on the Dominican nation. While a few Dominican intellectuals and members of the academic community have begun to challenge the construction of the inferior Haitian Other in contemporary racial discourse, the mainstream culture in the Dominican Republic continues to repudiate the Haitian Other as lesser, as black. Legendary status is given to Haitians in the Dominican Folklore and

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______________________________________________________________ national imagination, based on ideas related to practicing black magic and cannibalism.12 The dominant Dominican discourse and cultural expressions share an anti-Haitian thread, running through music, literature, religion, public policies and party politics. The exclusion of Haitians from the definition of the national identity is not a phenomenon that will disappear soon, if at all.13 The rejection of blackness, and its association with the demonised Haitian Other, in much of Dominican racial discourse is unusual, considering the mostly mulatto origins of much of the population. The social construction of racial identities in Caribbean societies are stratified in terms of economic status and skin colour tones, ranging from black to brown to white.14 Colour distinctions made in Caribbean societies include a whole range of physical features, such as hair form and facial structure. Phenotypical features and socio-economic status determine someone’s racial identity in these societies, as opposed to determining race based on biological descent.15 The Dominican racial classification system is unique within the Caribbean context for two reasons: it identifies blackness with Haitian descent, which does not allow for blacks to be considered as a separate category within the racial spectrum and it blurs distinctions between whites, mestizos and mulattos, which ultimately creates an impression that the nation is constructed from predominately white and indigenous sources.16 Discussions regarding race focused on lightness rather than whiteness amongst the second generation of Dominicans in the US.17 Their constructions and interpretations of race and ethnicity in the US lead to the creation of a subaltern identity that embraces elements of African American culture and blackness, a dramatic departure from traditional Dominican racial ideas and the first generation’s complete repudiation of blackness. The Dominican racial system, and most other Caribbean racial systems, dramatically differs from the US system of racial binaries and dichotomies that are exclusively focused on the categories of black and white. The North American system of racial classifications is unusual in its intense separation of subordinate racial minorities from the dominant groups. The black/white binary, or division, has been rigidly defined in terms of hypodescent, or the ‘one drop’ rule of racial categorisation.18 The dominant racial discourse in the US divides the population into an upper stratum of white ethnic groups of European origin and a lower stratum of various black and brown groups from outside of European origin. The racialisation of nonEuropean immigrant groups has altered the face of assimilation and acculturation into dominant American society. Prior to the reform of immigration laws in 1965, most immigrants emigrated from European countries. By the second generation, these children of immigrants had largely assimilated into the dominant group identity. Dominican immigrants, as well as other non-European immigrants, complicate the American discourse on race since they can appear phenotypically black or white, but are culturally

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______________________________________________________________ Hispanic. It is often difficult for people from the dominant group in the US to identify which racial or ethnic categories Dominicans belong to. Most of the second generation respondents in Louie’s 2006 study had been mistaken for being another ethnicity or race, such as Indian, Greek, Middle Eastern, and black depending on phenotype, eye colour and hair texture.19 The disconnect between how these immigrants racially identify themselves and the racial ascriptions others assign them led to a formation of an oppositional identity in the second generation. This generation of Dominicans has formed a subaltern identity infused with elements of African American hip hop culture, linking their resistance to the American racial system with the traditional victims of the system. Most Dominicans racially self identify themselves in terms of language by utilising a pan-ethnic identity, such as Hispanic, Spanish or Latino. The high rates of Spanish language retention in the second generation make the Hispanic ethnic identification particularly salient and the process problematises the American conflation of black identity as both race and ethnicity.20 The racial classifications in the US based upon phenotype is at odds with the ethnolinguistic identity that the Dominican second generation claims. Second generation Dominican immigrants perform their selfascripted Latino identity by demonstrating their knowledge of Spanish in social situations. While the subaltern identity of Dominicans infuses many linguistic and cultural portions of hip hop, this identity remains a separate, non-black identity. Conceptions of race recognise phenotype markers, but also include language or cultural markers of identity. Most of the second generation self identifies as Spanish, Hispanic, Latino or Dominican. Bailey argues this national/ethnolinguistic construction of race challenges the typical discourse in the United States and presents limitless new categorisations and ascriptions.21 The role of the Hispanic is ‘played’ by this generation in order to escape the black and white dichotomy of America’s past. The pan-national and pan-ethnic identities of Spanish, Latino or Hispanic are all constructions of identity based upon the system in the US. For those who choose to identify under a pan-national identity, race is constructed along cultural, linguistic and geographic commonalities.22 For many Dominicans of the second generation, notions of race are tied to primordial and biological conceptions of the nation and often consider their national origin as their race. Spanish is the dominant form in which Dominicans can perform their identity and distance themselves from African Americans. Other Caribbean immigrants from non-Spanish speaking countries self-identify as black by the second generation, while those from Spanish speaking countries rarely do. Those non-Hispanic immigrants that maintain their ethnic identifications into the second generation typically come from higher economic classes and have more interactions with white, middle class Americans.23

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______________________________________________________________ Bailey argues that Dominicans resist racialisation by the dominant group in the US in three ways: not all Dominicans fit into one phenotype based category of race, they see themselves as descendants of white Spaniards, and their Spanish linguistic skills set them apart from African Americans.24 The importance of the Spanish language to the construction of the Dominican subaltern identity cannot be dismissed. Spanish linguistic skills distinguishes the Latino second generation from numerous other Caribbean second generation children without those skills. In the US, African descent race has been considered equivalent to African ethnicity and this largely explains why second generation immigrants of African descent self identify with the African American community.25 Phenotype and ties to primordial ideas of bloodlines has preceded all other racial signifiers, such as language, religion and national origin in the dominant discourse.26 However, the second generation of Dominican immigrants is challenging this discourse of race by self identifying with racial identities based upon ethnolinguistic heritage instead of phenotype. The choice of a pan-ethnic identity, such as Latino or Hispanic, functions both as racial and ethnic forms of selfidentification for the Dominican second generation. The pan-ethnic identities provide an intermediate option, much like the Indio option within Island discourse, and allow this generation to challenge the racial constructions in the US.27 While the second generation may self identify in terms of ethnolinguistic identities, many are considered black by others in the US. Bailey argues, ‘Everyday enactment of a Dominican identity thus involves negotiating disparities between self-ascription and other-ascription of identity, and resisting phenotype racial categorisation, a fundamental form of social organisation in the US’.28 The Spanish language is an essential component of resisting mainstream phenotype based racial classifications in the US system and is also the key element to performing Dominican identity; no one can mistake them for blacks when they speak Spanish. For the second generation, language takes precedence over phenotype when defining race. Language is a medium the second generation uses to highlight certain facets of their identity, often calling into question the common racial ascriptions and categories based strictly upon phenotype. Since they speak Spanish, they are Spanish.29 Many non-Hispanics accept Spanish skills as evidence of a nonAfrican identity. Itzigsohn et al. argue that the prevalence of pan-ethnic identities in the Spanish speaking second generation demonstrates the emergence of a limited pan-ethnic consciousness, resulting from common social experiences and positioning within the US racial hierarchy that they all face.30 The conflation of ethnicity and race in the term Hispanic does not stem from US Census categories. The question regarding Hispanic origin is separated from the question regarding race, acknowledging that people who identify as Hispanic can come from various races.31 While Dominican Americans see themselves as outside of the US black/white dichotomy of

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______________________________________________________________ race, and can successfully resist ascription as black through demonstration of Spanish language skills, they are still subject to racial ascriptions based upon phenotype from the outside.32 Focusing on Spanish linguistic skills often works for lighter skinned Dominicans, but the darker skinned Dominicans cannot avoid ascriptions associated with phenotype. Despite some of the second generation’s attempt to distance themselves from blackness by focusing on their Hispanic heritage, many of the darker skinned Dominicans strongly identify with their African American peers. Darker skinned Dominicans share a low socio-economic position within the American hierarchy, segregated neighbourhoods, sub-standard schools and African descent phenotype.33 For black Latinos, the racialised world they face in the US is complex and complicated. They are black, but not black enough for many African Americans, very Latino but not light enough to matter to most Hispanics, American in many ways but ultimately different.34 Amongst the varying national Latino groups, Dominicans have the highest percentage that self identify as black.35 Many Dominicans adopt forms of African American English into their vernacular, which serves as a language of resistance in the face of discrimination they encounter from dominant US groups, as it does for the African American community.36 African American hip hop is a cultural realm where the Afro-diasporicity of second generation Caribbean Latino immigrants is affirmed and even celebrated, partially through shared linguistic practices with the black community in the US.37 Many second generation Dominicans have adopted the dress style associated with hip hop and the urban American teen: baggy jeans, timberland boots, cornrows, etc.38 Hip hop is a vernacular culture shared by Caribbean descent teenagers with African American teenagers in the landscape of major US urban centres, particularly New York City.39 The main destination for Dominican migrants is New York City, and they have become the largest immigrant group in the city since 1970.40 Hip hop culture developed in New York during the 1970’s, focusing on graffiti, MCing/rapping, DJing, and break dancing. The culture grew rapidly and expanded into other expressive forms, such as poetry, fashion and language. Rivera identifies two hip hop sub-communities second generation Spanish speakers engage with: a Latino centric zone and New York ‘core’.41 The Latino centric zone, largely focused on reggaeton music, infuses MCing with Caribbean and reggae influences. Most artists who participate in the Latin based hip hop circuit are Spanish dominant and likely spent a large portion of their lives in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who participate in the ‘core’ scene of New York hip hop tend to be English dominant members of the first and a half, second or third generation.42 Examples of Dominican descent rappers in the New York core hip hop scene are Fabulous, AZ, Cassidy and Juelz Santana. The physical space of the core scene in New York

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______________________________________________________________ is not as ethno-racially segregated as the space inhabited by the subcommunity of reggaeton, which is a largely Latino musical movement. For Latino participants in the core of hip hop, ethnic and national identities are often not as salient as identities based on borough, city, coast, gender, and class.43 The core New York hip hop scene is a multi-ethnic arena of collaboration including African Americans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and many others. The shared urban youth and hip hop cultures of the multi-ethnic second generation in New York have been formed from African American and Latino sources, but the commercial scene is dominated by African Americans and thus identified with them.44 The Dominican second generation’s experience is encoded in hip hop by expressing heterosexual male prowess, ability to MC in English and a demonstration of ghetto street knowledge-coded as the ‘nigga’ experience.45 The term ‘nigga’ has been embraced by the urban youth culture and its use is ubiquitous in barrios and ghettoes alike. The word in fact has become a global phenomenon, becoming part of the language in cities such as Freetown and Accra.46 The term is viewed in the Latin New York community as a term of inclusion and solidarity, similar to its meaning in the African American community.47 As the hip hop MC AZ (who is half Dominican and half African American) points out, ‘It's just a code of communication to us, a 'hood word people throw around frequently’.48 Latinos, particularly those of African descent, often use the term to remind people that they too are products of the Atlantic slave trade, and therefore, share a form of solidarity with African Americans in the hip hop community. While most of the first generation of immigrants from the Dominican Republic identified more with white, mainstream culture, the successive generations have increasingly begun to embrace their Afro-Latin identities. The culture of hip hop and the language of resistance it provides are combined with Dominican conceptions of racial identities to form an oppositional, subaltern identity centred on urban youth culture. The Dominican second-generation’s embracement of their ‘blackness’ and hip-hop culture has become significant in the political realm of New York City. Most Dominicans experience racialisation as black by the dominant group, and recognise that they have been marginalised in the US on account of their race.49 The solidarity established by the hip hop community amongst Latinos and African Americans provides a basis for other interethnic and inter-racial political coalitions to emerge, particularly those focused on ending state and police violence against their communities. Many of today’s immigrants from the developing world are racialised into the bottom of the labour hierarchy, and these ascribed identities often limit economic and social mobility for the second generation.50 Peer groups in largely multi-ethnic US cities help develop the second generation’s identities and allows for solidarity and mutual support across racial lines. Dominicans

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______________________________________________________________ recognise their membership in the black Diaspora, but infuse their identity with Latin elements. Many of the second generation develop identities and theories of race that allow for inter-ethnic and inter-racial organising in order to raise consciousness and counteract racism. Oppositional, or subaltern, identities and collaborative organisations are utilised by the second generation to resist the dominant discourse of racial oppression.51 Identity formation is a strategy used by minority groups in society to achieve legal rights and resources for the group. Aparicio argues that in order to empower the future for themselves, the Dominican second generation needs to proactively mobilise around self-ascribed ethnic identities and collaborate with other minority groups.52 The subaltern identity formed by the Dominican second generation developed in response to the racialisation they are subjected to in the US labour market and society. This identity incorporated elements of Dominican culture, such as the Spanish language, with elements of African American hip hop culture. This is a dramatic reversal of the trends adopted by the first generation Dominican immigrants, who attempted to assimilate into white, mainstream American culture and focused on their distance from attributes of ‘blackness’. The second generation maintains a separate identity from African Americans by performing Spanish language skills, but does recognise the denigration of blackness in the Dominican racial discourse. The younger generations, by adopting a subaltern identity based on their own ethnic and racial ascriptions, challenge dominant constructions of race and ethnicity in the US and the Dominican Republic. This subaltern identity is one of resistance and it problematises American notions of blackness, race, and ethnicity. It is through the language of hip hop and urban street culture that various ethnic and racial groups in American cities can create inter-racial and inter-ethnic political coalitions and organisations to reach mutual goals and aims, such as creating more employment. The subaltern identity will remain an avenue of resistance for Dominicans, as well as other Second Generation non-white immigrants, as long as racialised ideas exist regarding assimilation into the dominant US culture. While this paper does not utilise quantitative methodology to demonstrate the existence of this subaltern identity, the survey research conducted by Bailey, Louie and Itzigsohn et. al confirm that the Dominican Second Generation have an understanding of racial identity that significantly differs from contemporary US racial discourse.

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Notes 1

H Bhabha, ‘Unsatisfied: notes on vernacular cosmopolitanism’, in Text and Nation: Cross-Disciplinary Essays on Cultural and National Identities. L. Garcia-Moreno and P. C. Pfeiffer (eds.), Camden House, Columbia, SC, 1996, pp. 192. 2 J Duany, ‘Reconstructing Identity: Ethnicity, Colour and Class among Dominicans in the United States and Puerto Rico’. Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, 1998, pp. 147-153. 3 ibid, pp. 150. 4 . S Torres-Saillant, ‘The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity’. Callaloo, vol. 23, 2000, pp. 1075-1085. 5 Duany op. cit., pp. 151. 6 ibid, pp. 152. 7 B Bailey, ‘Dominican-American Ethnic/Racial Identities and United States Social Categories.’ International Migration Review, vol. 35, 2001, pp. 68185. 8 Duany op. cit., pp. 150. 9 Torres-Saillant, op. cit., pp. 1090. 10 Duany op. cit., pp. 151. 11 Duany op. cit., pp. 151. 12 ibid, pp. 152. 13 Torres-Saillant, op. cit., pp. 1091. 14 Duany op. cit., pp. 150. 15 ibid, pp. 150. 16 ibid, pp. 152. 17 V Louie, ‘Growing up Ethnic in Transnational Worlds: Identities Among Second Generation Chinese and Dominicans’. Identities, vol. 13, 2006, pp. 384. 18 Duany op. cit., pp. 155. 19 Louie op. cit., pp. 385. 20 B Bailey, ‘Language and negotiation of ethnic/racial identity among Dominicans’. Language in Society, vol. 29, 2000, pp. 556. 21 ibid, pp. 556. 22 ibid, pp. 558. 23 ibid, pp. 558. 24 ibid, pp. 558. 25 ibid, pp. 556. 26 ibid, pp. 556. 27 J Itzigsohn, S Giorguli and O Vazquez, ‘Immigrant incorporation and racial identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 28, 2005, pp. 54.

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Bailey op. cit., pp. 556. ibid, pp. 556. 30 Itzigsohn, Giorguli and Vazquez op. cit, pp. 54. 31 ibid, pp. 63. 32 Bailey op. cit., pp. 556. 33 ibid, pp. 557. 34 G Escobar, ‘Dominicans Face Assimilation in Black and White’. The Washington Post, 14 May 1999, pp. A03. 35 Itzigsohn, Giorguli and Vazquez op. cit, pp. 54. 36 Bailey op cit., pp. 560. 37 R Rivera, ‘Hip Hop and New York Puerto Ricans’, in Latino/a Popular Culture. M. Romero and M. Habell-Pallan (eds.), New York University Press, New York, 2002, pp. 138. 38 Escobar op. cit., pp. A03. 39 Rivera op. cit., pp. 127. 40 Escobar op. cit., pp. A03. 41 Rivera op. cit., pp. 128. 42 ibid, pp. 129. 43 ibid, pp. 129. 44 ibid, pp. 134. 45 ibid, pp. 134. 46 R Cepeda, ‘The N-Word Is Flourishing Among Generation Hip Hop Latinos: Why should we care now?, in Village Voice, October 2008, viewed on 18th April 2009, . 47 ibid. 48 ibid. 49 A Aparicio, Dominican Americans and the Politics of Empowerment. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 2009, pp. 29. 50 ibid, pp. 30. 51 ibid, pp. 30. 52 ibid, pp. 32. 29

Bibliography Aparicio, A., Dominican Americans and the Politics of Empowerment. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 2009. Bhabha, H., ‘Unsatisfied: notes on vernacular cosmopolitanism’, in Text and Nation: Cross-Disciplinary Essays on Cultural and National Identities. L. Garcia-Moreno and P. C. Pfeiffer (eds.), Camden House, Columbia, SC, 1996, pp. 191-207.

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______________________________________________________________ Bailey, B., ‘Language and negotiation of ethnic/racial identity among Dominicans’. Language in Society, vol. 29, 2000, pp. 555-582. Bailey, B., ‘Dominican-American Ethnic/Racial Identities and United States Social Categories.’ International Migration Review, vol. 35, 2001, pp. 677708. Cepeda, R., ‘The N-Word Is Flourishing Among Generation Hip Hop Latinos: Why should we care now?, in Village Voice, October 2008, viewed on 18th April 2009, . Duany, J., ‘Reconstructing Identity: Ethnicity, Color and Class among Dominicans in the United States and Puerto Rico’. Latin American Perspectives, vol. 25, 1998, pp. 147-172. Escobar, G., ‘Dominicans Face Assimilation in Black and White’. Washington Post, 14 May 1999, pp. A03.

The

Itzigsohn, J., Giorguli, S. and Vazquez, O., ‘Immigrant incorporation and racial identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 28, 2005, pp. 50-78. Louie, V., ‘Growing up Ethnic in Transnational Worlds: Identities Among Second Generation Chinese and Dominicans’. Identities, vol. 13, 2006, pp. 363-394. Rivera, R., ‘Hip Hop and New York Puerto Ricans’, in Latino/a Popular Culture. M. Romero and M. Habell-Pallan (eds.), New York University Press, New York, 2002, pp. 127-146 Torres-Saillant, S., ‘The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial Identity’. Callaloo, vol. 23, 2000, pp. 1068-1111. Julia Meszaros is Scholar in Residence at Florida International University. While interested in the development of cultural identities, currently her research and writing is devoted to examining economic globalisation’s creation of new international labour hierarchies and its impact on women’s migration patterns as mail order brides.

Fragmented Lives, Fragmented Identities: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Out- and In-Marriage on the Identities of Filipinas in the United Kingdom Ramona Buhain Bacon Abstract In this paper I present empirical evidence, gathered through life histories and in-depth interviews, for 15 out- and 15 in-married Filipinas who live in Essex. The overall findings suggest that identities for the out-married group (Filipinas whose spouses are English) is more ‘fragmented’ as demonstrated in having ‘mixed’ identifications than the in-married group (Filipinas whose spouses are Filipinos). Less than half of the out-married respondents have ‘mixed’ identifications, while more than half of the out-married Filipinas have described themselves as an outright ‘P/Filipina/o’ despite the principal social connection provided by out-marriage. On the other hand, almost all of the in-married respondents have identified themselves as a straightforward ‘P/Filipina/o’, while only one has claimed a ‘mixed’ identity on the basis of ‘having spent more than half of our lives in England’. Capitalising on the strength of the narrative approach (by letting the narratives ‘speak’ for themselves), the construction of ‘P/Filipina/o’ and ‘mixed’ identities are linked with the notions of ‘home’, sense of patriotism, and maintenance of old citizenship, familial ties and obligations in the country of origin, and ‘others’ attributions. Key Words: Fragmented identities, in-marriage, mixed identities, notions of ‘home’, out-marriage, ‘P/Filipina/o’ identities. **** We grew up in the Philippines, didn’t we? We didn’t grow up here. So, I’m still a Filipino. I still want to go ‘home’ [Philippines]. A lot of people asked me if I want to go back ‘home’ for good, let’s say, six months in England, and six months in the Philippines. But, then, when I went ‘home’ with my daughter in 1985, we were there for four months, but after three months, I wanted to come back here [to England]. My God! [laughs]. I don’t want to go to the nursing home here. I want to die, and be cremated, in the Philippines. I told my husband to bring my ashes there, and put my ashes where my mother was buried. Grace, out-married, aged 62, full-time residential care provider, 32 yrs in the UK.

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______________________________________________________________ According to Centre for Filipinos1, a brief historical account on Filipino migration to the UK revealed that Filipinos came to the UK at a time when the government was restricting entry to its Commonwealth citizens West Indians and people from Indian Subcontinent - who had come to Britain during the post-war labour shortage of the 1950s. In comparison to AfroCaribbean, East and South Asian immigrants, there were relatively few Filipinos who work and live in the UK. The Commonwealth Immigration Bill in 1972 ended the automatic right of Commonwealth citizens to remain in the UK but introduced work permits for Filipinos, mostly in the domestic and catering sectors because of the labour shortage during this boom period. As a result of talks after race riots in 1962, between 1973 and 1976, 7,278 work permits were issued to Filipinos, while only 1,772 were issued to Indians, one of Britain’s traditional sources of cheap labour. Earlier literature by Almirol2, in a journal published in 1979, highlighted the plight of low-paid Filipino migrants in this country (hotel maids, waitresses, private domestic servants, hospital orderlies, nurses’ aides and mill and textile workers). Almirol argued that there had been little scholarly attention paid to Filipino migration in the UK due to their lack of ‘political clout,’ which resulted in a ‘dismissive attitude’ towards their problems. Almirol stressed that the real problem was the attitudes of the native UK population towards them and their own unrealistic expectations and the lack of knowledge about how to achieve respect and status within the host country. He pointed out that it was important to know what these expectations were, how the immigrants were assessed, and how they assessed themselves. These factors, according to Almirol, determined the Filipino ethnic identity. Since then, apart from a publication produced by Centre for Filipinos entitled Hinabing Gunita (Woven Memories), which captured the experiences of Filipino migrants in London, literature about Filipinos in the UK is sparse. However, as far as Filipino migration to the UK is concerned, recent figures, based from the 2001 Census, estimated 40,123 Filipinos living in the UK, 12,000 living in London. In addition, the International Passenger Survey conducted by the National Statistics in 2003, placed the Philippines 8th out of the top ten countries of last residence, which indicates the growing Filipino population in the UK in the last six years, most unlikely to be reversed by return migration3. On the other hand, looking at the gendered pattern of Filipino migration as a whole, reveals a strong concentration towards Filipino women, with over 91 percent of the over 175,000 engaged or married to foreigners between 1989 and 1999. Approximately 40 percent (over 70,000) of the foreign partners are from the United States; 30 percent (over 53,000) from Japan; 8.8 percent from Australia; 4.2 percent from Germany; 3.8 percent from Canada; and 1.9 percent from the United Kingdom, as revealed by

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______________________________________________________________ Constable. Added to this were the Filipinos (the majority of whom were women) who have settled over the last two decades in the UK, confirming the Philippines as not only a labour- exporting country4 but also as a ‘popular marriage-migrant place of origin’5. This research has been conceived in order to illuminate our understanding on how Filipino women or Filipinas, as they are more commonly known for, from both out- (settlement by marriage) and in-married (settlement by employment) groups have identified themselves in the host country, where they have spent or intend to spend most of their lives. The construction of Filipino identity reveals multiple layers of identity constructions. Based from extracts of interviews from both out-and in- married Filipina respondents, the term ‘P/Filipino/a’ identities emanated from the respondents’ perception of themselves. Likewise, TintiangcoCubales6 argued that the term ‘Filipina’ has been ‘subjected to multiple subjectivities, not only that of contradiction and opposition’ but also of ‘negative labelling’7. However, ‘P/Filipina/o’ identity constructions reveal more than their epistemological relevance but also highlights their contextual significance - they are linked with the notions of ‘home’, sense of patriotism, and maintenance of old citizenship, familial ties and obligations in the country of origin, and others’ attributions. Likewise, fragmented identities, bits and pieces, patchiness and fluidity over time are demonstrated on how both the out- and the in-married Filipinas negotiate, construct and reconstruct their identities, as well as their ‘lived’ experiences in the host country. The study included 15 out- and 15 in-married Filipinas who live in Essex (located in the Southeast of England). The interviews lasted between two to four hours including informal conversations with the respondents and were conducted from December 2007 to April 2008. Two Filipinas were interviewed in July 2009. 1.

P/Filipina/o and Mixed Identities Based from extracts of interviews and the respondents’ outright responses to the question, ‘how do you identify yourself?’, Grace and seven other out-married Filipinas claimed to have ‘P/Filipina/o’ identities. While seven out of 15 out-married respondents perceived themselves as having ‘mixed’ identifications on the basis of ‘England is part of my life. I’m British anyway’8. For the in-married Filipinas, almost all of the respondents, with 14 out of 15 have ‘P/Filipina/o’ identifications, while only one inmarried Filipina claimed to have ‘mixed’ identity by pointing out that, ‘more than half of our lives is spent in England’9. Grace, one of those Filipinas who had never left ‘home’ behind. Her sense of ‘Pilipina’ identity, as she pointed out, stemmed from ‘having been born in the Philippines and growing up there’ and ‘not in the England’. Despite the principal social connection provided by out-marriage, her ‘Pilipina’ identity has been maintained over 30 years of living in England.

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______________________________________________________________ As Grace says, ‘Of course, I act like a Filipino’10. Grace demonstrates this ‘Pilipina’ identity, which she links to her notion of ‘home’, her country of origin, where she wants to take her last breath. For the 14 in-married group of Filipinas, an outright identification as ‘of course, I’m a P/Filipina/o’ reveals a strong identification with the country of origin, with only one in-married Filipina claiming a ‘mixed’ identification by ‘feeling more British’ on the basis of spending more than half of her life in England. A residential homeowner, Maria has lived in England for 37 years: ‘You know we still have our old customs, isn’t it? Half of our lives are spent here; we have our family, our children. We feel more British’11. On mixed identification, seven out of 15 out-married respondents, regarded themselves as ‘mixed’. Josie, for example, celebrates this ‘mixed’ identity by saying: ‘I think it's beautiful what I've got. I have two [identities]. I'm proud of myself, I could be British and I could be Filipino as well’. Josie justifies this ‘mixed’ identification by her desire to fit in ‘accordingly’ and ‘integrating’ herself to the mainstream culture: If I'm in the Philippines, I behave like a Filipino. But, if you live in this country, you must behave accordingly, and I expect my fellow Filipinos to do the same. Everyone has to be treated fairly and equally, and be fair to both sides. When I first arrived here, the opportunity was there to 'integrate.' For me, it was a challenge. I had to learn the English culture. Now, when [Filipinos] arrive here, they eat together, like a community, the opportunity to 'integrate' is not there anymore12. Agnes, on the other hand, aged 68 at the time of the interview, and has lived in the UK for 34 years, reaffirms this ‘mixed’ identity: You cannot forget your own country, wherever you are. But, this [England] is part of my life. I'm British, anyway. I'm mixed13. 2.

Notions of ‘Home’ ‘Home is where the heart is’ (out-married Filipina) ‘There's no place like home, it is still the Philippines’. (in-married Filipino)

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______________________________________________________________ ‘England is my home now, as I have spent more than half of my life here’. (Agnes, outmarried) Migration is claimed to influence the construction of identities and that ‘lives are informed and informed by different notions of ‘home’ and by the struggles to be at ‘home’ in multiple locations’14. Le Espiritu argued that ‘home making is border making: it is about deciding who is in as well as who is out’. In this study, notions of ‘home’ emanate and are linked from how the respondents negotiate, construct and re-construct their identities. For some of the out-married respondents, nine out of 15, ‘England is home’; while three regard ‘Philippines as home’, only one was unsure on the basis of ‘uncertainty of future plans’, with two of the respondents regard both countries, England and Philippines as ‘home’, as in the case of Sonia: This is my home. England is my home [without hesitation]. Purely because I've been here half of my life, I came here when I was 18, this is my home. But then when I go back [to the Philippines], it is different. It is my family home, too. But, because, I'm here, this is my main home. No, I'm the kind of person who never looked back, always, looking forward. You can't turn the clock back, move on. We just live our life one day at a time. I don't plan anything. Just live life as it is, live it each at a time, and see what it comes15. 3.

Sense of Patriotism and Maintenance of Old Citizenship There is a Filipino saying that ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay masahol pa sa malansang isda (he who does not look back at where he came from is far worse than a smell of a stench fish). That to deny one’s roots, is to deny the past, and to deny the past, is a form of betrayal to the country of birth. For Lita, her Filipino identification emanates from this ‘sense of patriotism’ and also in maintenance of her old citizenship which ‘gives her the chance to go back to what she perceives as home’. Juggling as a day and night residential care provider, Lita moved in to England in 2002, and has been married for 23 years. Lita has a ten-year old son who lives in the Philippines. Lita claims that she is trapped in an unhappy marriage: I am a Filipino, I'm not English, I'm not British. My husband asked me if I am not shy about this, and that our country is poor, I said, why should I? I am proud to be a Filipino16.

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______________________________________________________________ 4. Familial Ties and Obligations in the Country of Origin Gloria, a housewife, who has living in the UK for the last 13 years, describes her identity as ‘stronger’ towards Filipino, saying, ‘just the citizenship is British’. When asked, during an informal conversation with the researcher, why she identifies herself as such, Gloria explains: Perhaps, because of my [extended] family. I still maintain contact with them. I try to help them out financially, like I bought a house for my brother to help him out, as life there is difficult. I paid the tuition for my niece so she was able to finish a nursing course17. Gloria’s case manifests the strong Filipino ‘family kinship’ as argued by Cahill18 as he pointed out that ‘Filipino psyche was best understood by its kinship system and the primacy of the family became the cornerstone of the Philippine society with virtually no social security system’19. Family orientation, according to Cahill, was ‘one of the strengths of Filipino character, it was the source of personal identity, the bulwark for a sense of rootedness and security and the target for one's commitment in life’. For both out- and in-married groups, helping one’s family, including older siblings and extended families, was one of the strong motivations driving them to send remittances and boxes of goodies to their loved ones. ‘For the sake of the family’, became the familiar phrase. 5.

Others’ Attributions Susie, an out-married Filipina, who works as a customer services manager, and who moved back and forth to England due to her husband’s military assignment, but has lived in the UK for the last 10 years, justified her Filipino identity on the basis of how other people regard and see her, and how she regards herself: I can answer you what my nephew answers me, I'm a human being. What do you mean? Identify myself either English or Filipina? I still think myself as a Filipina. Although, I'm a British citizen. When I first joined this company, they automatically say to you, where are you from? They won't assume, you're English or British. They always look at you as a 'foreigner' because you look different!

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______________________________________________________________ When asked whether this has affected her: Definitely. I would say, what do you mean? Do you mean from the UK, or where I originally come? And they would say, where you originally come from. I would say, from the Philippines20. 6.

Conclusions Based from the overall findings of the study, the out-married group of Filipinas’ identities tends to suggest some forms of ‘fragmentation’ in their ‘mixed’ identifications than the in-married group. This ‘fragmentation’, suggests some patchiness, fluidity and multiplicity over time, while for almost all of the in-married group of respondents ‘P/Filipina/o identities are predominant, with only one in-married who ‘feels more British’. On notions of ‘home’, the out-married group of Filipinas regard ‘England as home’ while majority for the in-married group regard ‘Philippines as home’. Other significant factors which shape, form, and define the ‘P/Filipina/o’ identities are the sense of patriotism and maintenance of old citizenship, familial ties and obligations and ‘others’ attributions. Giddens in his book on Modernity and Self-Identity noted how modernity ‘fragments’ and ‘disassociates’ our concepts of self-identity21. Both the out- and in-married group of Filipinas have highlighted the ‘fragmentation’ of identities in their concept of ‘the self’ revealing not only the multiplicity and fluidity of these identity constructions but also the maintenance of these identities throughout their lives in the UK.

Notes 1

Centre for Filipinos, Hinabing Gunita (Woven Memories), London, CF Books, 2004, pp. 34. The term ‘Filipinos’ is a generic term for Filipino men and ‘Filipinas’ to Filipino women. 2 E Almirol, ‘Filipinos in the UK’. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 31, pp. 3-4. 3 Although there were no statistics for return migration for Filipinos, the increasing trend was unlikely to be reversed by return migration mainly for economic reasons. 4 S Castles, ‘Migration as a factor in social transformation in East Asia’, paper presented during a Conference on Migration and Development at Princeton University, 2000, pp. 5. 5 N Constable, Cross Border Marriages, University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania, 2005, pp. 4.

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A G Tintiangco-Cubales, ‘Pinayism’, Pinay Power, M L De Jesus (ed), New York and Oxon, 2005, pp. 139. 7 L A Revilla, ‘Filipino American Identity’ in Filipino Americans Transformation and Identity, M P Root (ed) Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi, 1997, pp. 107. Pinay (feminine) or Pinoy (masculine) are both colloquial terms for a ‘Pilipina’ or ‘Pilipino’ whose origin can be traced from Tagalog or Pilipino language rather than ‘Filipina’ or Filipino which was more Spanish in origin such as in Las Islas Filipinas (The Islands of the Philippines). 8 Agnes, a full-time night carer, out-married Filipina, interview dated January 2007. 9 Maria, a residential home-owner, in-married, interview dated July 2009. 10 Grace, a full-time day care worker, out-married, interview dated November 2007. 11 The interview was conducted jointly with Maria’s husband in the couple’s residential-owned home. When the researcher asked Maria in one of the Filipino gatherings, Maria claimed to have a ‘Filipino identity’. But, the couple admitted that in the ‘last 10 years they have decided to live permanently in England’. 12 Josie, out-married, a former nurse, now a foster-care mom for young adults, interview dated November 2007. 13 Agnes, out-married. See note no. 8. 14 Y Le Espiritu, Home Bound, University of California Press, California and London, 2003, pp. 16. 15 Sonia, an out-married, full-time night carer and therapist, interview dated March 2008. 16 Lita, out-married, full-time day care worker, interviewed December 2007. 17 Gloria, out-married, housewife, interview dated February 2008. 18 D Cahill, Intermarriages in International Contexts: A Study of Filipino Women Married to Australian, Japanese and Swiss Men, Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City, Philippines, 1990, pp. 48. 19 For many Filipinos across the globe, as demonstrated in the billions of remittances, the Philippine government state pension does not provide adequately for old age, with private hospitalisation beyond the reach of the ‘poor’. 20 Susie, a customer services manager, out-married, interview dated November 2007. 21 A Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, Polity Press, Cambridge and Oxford, 1991, pp. 27.

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Bibliography Almirol, E. (1979) ‘Filipinos in the UK’ in Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. No. 31, pp. 3-4. Cahill, D. (1990). Intermarriages in International Contexts. A Study of Filipina Women Married to Australian, Japanese and Swiss Men. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center. Castles, S. (2000) ‘Migration as a factor in social transformation in East Asia.' Paper presented during a Conference on Migration and Development, Princeton University, USA. Le Espiritu, Y. (2003). Home Bound. California and London: University of California Press. Constable, N. (2002) ‘Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: Household Rules and Relations’ in Ehrenreich and Hochschild (eds) Global Woman. Great Britain: Granta Books. Constable, N. (2005) (ed) Cross Border Marriages. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Pennsylvania:

Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press. National Statistics (2003) 'International Migration', Series MN no. 30, pp. xiv. Revilla, L.A. (1997) ‘Filipino American Identity’ in M.P. Root (ed) Filipino Americans Transformation and Identity. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications. Ramona Buhain Bacon is currently an MPhil student in the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, United Kingdom. She finished her Master of Arts in Communication Research at the University of the Philipppines, Manila, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communication at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila). Her research interests include social interaction, identity, immigration, and multiculturalism.

An Identity Matrixing Model for Transculturality Michael Kearney and Setsuko Adachi Abstract With the development of Advanced Information and Communications Systems (AICS), the dissemination of cultural constructions has become more rapid and has broadened in scope to include most regions of the world. Many of the cultural systems being transmitted globally through AICS are Euro-American: these include concepts regarding economics, consumerism, civil rights, politics, gender roles, morality, lifestyle, notions of success, fashion, and diet. When external concepts permeate traditional regional cultural systems, irreversible alterations occur. Thus, the idea of concise homogeneous cultures is antiquated. Current cultures are hybridisations. In the global paradigm of informatisation, regional societal sets are transcultural. Holding that identity is constructed internally within an individual from external cultural factors, then it may be concluded that identities today are culturally hybrid. To better address the forging of identity under the forces of globalisation, the authors have developed a theoretical model of the identity formation process, termed Identity Matrixing, which accounts for the conditions of transculturality. The paper begins with an overview of Lacan’s concepts on the structuring and production of human identity from the diverse cultural constructions of the Symbolic Order. Building upon Lacan’s work, the authors propose that while the members of a particular societal set share elements of that set’s Symbolic Order, individuals, based upon their unique experiences, have a Symbolic Order unto themselves. Here the authors introduce the concepts, Vertical Matrixing and Horizontal Matrixing. This development provides insight into both shared cultural traits and the individuality of identities. The Meta-Symbolic Order, which is the top level of Horizontal Matrixing and which is directly related to globalisation, will then be discussed. Finally the concept of Global Hodological Mapping will be introduced: here the term ‘hodological’ is derived from Sartre’s notion of an internalised chart of one’s Umwelt. It is proposed that an understanding of the aforementioned concepts will foster the creation of transcultural frameworks to better engage and traverse globalising cultural landscapes. Key Words: Global hodological map, hybridisation, identity matrixing, meta-symbolic order, transcultural, vertical/horizontal matrixing. *****

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Lacanian Theories and the Identity Matrixing Model In The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience, Jacques Lacan postulated that the ‘conception of the mirror stage’ introduced an innovative explanation ‘on the formation of the I’1. Lacan argued that this new direction in thought overturned ‘any philosophy directly issuing from the Cogito’2, particularly Postindustrial, or Late-capitalist, concepts of the Self, the roots of which lie in Cartesian concepts of thought that are self-actualising philosophies. Lacan devised his concept of the mirror stage after a comparative psychological study between infant humans and infant chimpanzees that revealed a distinct ‘feature of human behaviour’3. The subjects were between six and eighteen months, a point in their respective developments where chimpanzees are able to outperform humans ‘in instrumental intelligence’4. The study positioned the human and chimpanzee infants in front of mirrors, and found that the chimpanzees lost interest in their reflections ‘[o]nce the image[s] ha[d] been mastered and found empty’5; however, Lacan observed that the human infants began: A series of gestures in which [the infants] experience in play the relation between the movements assumed in the image and the reflected environment, and between this virtual complex and the reality it reduplicates - the child[ren]’s own body, and the persons and things around [them]6. Lacan argued that these gestures indicated the formation of an image of a unified complete subjectivity, or a non-fragmented Self or I. He surmised that this image becomes the human ego and remains unaware of its construction through ‘imaginary precepts and narcissistic fantasies’7. Thus, the mirror stage can be considered to be a phase of ‘identification’: it is the ‘transformation’ period through which a human passes while assuming an image of the self8. The infant transforms from a fragmented state (brought about by its separation from the mother’s body) with no sense of Self, to an image of completeness in itself and disconnectedness from the world: it is the creation of an image of subjectivity. According to Lacan, ‘this form situates the agency of the ego, before its social determination, in a fictional direction, which will always remain irreducible for the individual alone’9. Therefore, the mirror stage indicates the point in human development where a fictional image, whole and indissoluble, of the Self is constructed. However, while this process occurs internally, the image is formulated from the ‘social languages’10 of the environment that the individual inhabits; moreover, these social languages are external factors that were in existence before the individual came into being. Lacan termed these

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______________________________________________________________ social languages the Symbolic Order: the symbols of which ‘are not icons...but signifiers’ in the Saussurian sense11. The Symbolic Order is the realm of culture, of language, of signifiers from which the human entity emerges as an individualised I. The self, the I, exists. It is assembled within, but the various aspects comprising the whole are implanted, or matrixed, into it by the Symbolic Order: ‘it is the symbolic...that is seen to be the determining’, or matrixing, factor; subjective identity is ‘an effect of the symbolic’12. The image of a complete Self, ‘in the Cartesian, Hobbesian, and Lockean traditions,’ the notion of consciousness, or Self, being ‘like a bubble or an enclosed cabinet; the mind…in a box’13, which the subject believes has always existed, as a purely internal element of the Self, is a fallacy. Identity is formed within the subject from and by external factors. Hence, the Symbolic Order can be seen as the set of cultural constructions that is matrixed into individuals; the Symbolic Order provides the content and structure from which identity is formulated; it imparts the beliefs, ideologies, and realities that constitute thought and the discursive formations that govern it. While Lacan’s work presents a viable premise of how human identity is constructed, it does not take into account transcultural conditions where more than one Symbolic Order is in play. Here it is vital to stress that there are myriad Symbolic Orders throughout the whole of human culture and that no individual, unless under the most extreme circumstances, exists solely within one Symbolic Order. Except for the smallest, most primitive and isolated closed cultural sets existing today, cultural groupings are comprised of various strata: for example, economic and social positions, religious affiliations, ethnicity, and gender. Therefore, it can be surmised that in a larger framework an individual cohabitates different Symbolic Orders of varying sizes: for example a family of four, or a nation of millions. Moreover, it can also be argued that when brought down to an individual framework this complex mixing of Symbolic Orders provides each individual with their own personal Symbolic Order, which would provide the basis for the individuality of their identity. This blending of Symbolic Orders, of cultural constructions, in essence forms the transcultural landscapes within which humans lead their existence, each alone among many. It is from this position that the authors propose their Identity Matrixing Model and offer that the formation of human identities is a matrixing process where the Symbolic Orders that individuals encounter/exist within provide the elements from which their identities are constructed. The individual is never fully aware of either their own inner workings or the workings of the forces external to them. Chaotically accumulated objective forces become internalised subjective forces. Therefore, identity can be held as being constructed by the matrixing within a distinct individual of the various cultural constructions from the particular

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______________________________________________________________ Symbolic Orders within which that specific individual exists. These are assembled systematically through and by the dominant language(s) and cultural systems of that particular individual’s plane of existence to form within them a distinct identity, which will function within the governing discursive formations of the cultural systems, or Symbolic Orders, of which that particular person is a member. Thus, human identity can be viewed as the result of a matrixing process where external cultural constructions of the relevant Symbolic Orders are internalised and formulate and systematise an individual’s identity. 2.

Vertical and Horizontal Matrixing According to Lacan, an individual’s identity is formed from the cultural constructions of the Symbolic Order within which the individual is immersed. However, it is only in the rarest of cases, where a group is completely isolated from other groups and where the members of the group all belong to the same societal set, that there is only one Symbolic Order operating in the identity formation process. The more common situation is one where an individual exists within various Symbolic Orders. In order to delineate this complex process, the authors have developed the concepts of Vertical Matrixing and Horizontal Matrixing. Vertical Matrixing is the aspect of the identity formation process that accounts for the cultural constructions that are transmitted to an individual from a specific Symbolic Order that operates within a closed set. Horizontal Matrixing can be held as a bridging process where cultural constructions are transmitted across different societal sets. The various cultural constructions in operation may be grouped into regional or societal sets; thus, the Symbolic Orders can be seen to function within particular economic, ethnic, religious, or social groupings as well as within specific geographical boundaries. For example, a child between the ages of six months and three years, the off-spring of Roman Catholic immigrants from the Republic of Ireland living in the Woodside section, which is a predominantly Irish neighbourhood, of the Borough of Queens in New York City, will exist within a very closed societal set that can be viewed as an Irish Roman Catholic Symbolic Order. In such an environment, it is very likely that the child will encounter almost solely family and friends of the family, who would most probably be members of the Irish Roman Catholic Symbolic Order; thus, the child will be exposed to, and formatted by, the beliefs, customs, diet, language/dialect, mannerisms, and religion of this particular closed set Symbolic Order. This closed world of the child’s is surrounded by other Symbolic Order sets: Dominicans, Greeks, Jamaicans, and Koreans live in surrounding neighbourhoods; however, for the child, there would not be much, if any, intersection with these Symbolic Orders. In a sense, the child is cocooned. These other Symbolic Orders can be

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______________________________________________________________ represented as being in vertical parallel relationships to the child’s Symbolic Order. At this stage of the child’s identity formatting, the most probable bridging element, a Symbolic Order that intersects the other Symbolic Orders of the region, would be television. Common influences upon the children of the aforementioned Symbolic Order sets may be programmes such as Sesame Street and Spongebob. These shows would act as Horizontal Matrixing elements. Horizontal Matrixing is the case where a Symbolic Order bridges two or more separate closed set Symbolic Orders. As the child gets older, their world expands; they encounter and come to exist in a greater number of Symbolic Orders. As the child matures and increases the circumference of their world ever further out from their original infant Symbolic Order, cultural constructions from Symbolic Orders other than that of the Irish Roman Catholic set begin to be matrixed into them. In school the child is exposed to ‘America’: to what it is to be a subject of the United States. They encounter peers from other Symbolic Orders of the area and join with them in a Queens Symbolic Order. The Queens Symbolic Order bridges the Dominican, Greek, Irish, Jamaican, and Korean Symbolic Orders. It forms a horizontal bridging Symbolic Order set: this occurrence is clearly an element of the transcultural: considering this, then all transcultural situations could be held as Horizontal Matrixing. However, the Queens Borough Symbolic Order is also a vertical parallel Symbolic Order in relation to the other boroughs of New York City. This is because there are particular cultural aspects associated with Queens that are unique in comparison to the other boroughs of New York: for example there are Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Bronx accents and dialects; the socio-economic conditions of the boroughs are different; Staten Island has the highest percentage of detached dwellings, the Bronx will have a greater percentage of low income apartment blocks, Manhattan is the commercial and entertainment heart and will have the most expensive housing situation, while Brooklyn and Queens will have a semi-urban/semi-suburban environment; the crime rates between boroughs and neighbourhoods will also be very different. The cultural landscapes vary greatly between these different regions that are within close proximity to each other. Above the borough Symbolic Orders there will form a New York City Symbolic Order bridging layer that will provide the aspects for another Horizontal Matrixing process for the individual. The population of New York City will receive the transmissions of the New York City Symbolic Order while those individuals from Boston, for example, will be linked to each other by a Boston Symbolic Order, which will be a specific Horizontal Matrixing bridge for Bostonians. Of course, in relation to each other, the New York and Boston Symbolic Orders would be seen as Vertical Matrixing processes. There will also be a Horizontal Bridging process that

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______________________________________________________________ links New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and all other areas of the United States: the U.S. Symbolic Order. 3.

The Meta-Symbolic Order and Global Hodological Mapping With the development of Advanced Information and Communications Systems (AICS), a global bridging layer has formed across most of the world’s regional Symbolic Orders; this is the upper most condition of Horizontal Matrixing. The authors have termed this set of cultural constructions, which operate on a global level and foster transculturality, the Meta-Symbolic Order. This global horizontal bridging layer is broadcast by AICS across the world and is infused into all cultures that receive its transmissions. Through these transmissions, Euro-American cultural systems, ideologies related to economics, consumerism, civil rights, politics, gender roles, morality, lifestyle, notions of success, fashion, and diet, are spread to most regions of the world. The above conditions should in no way be read as suggesting that there is a single world culture forming; however, this process, by interlinking the diverse regions of the world, increases transculturality, thus broadening instances of cultural hybridity. While it is the case that the cultural constructions of the Meta-Symbolic Order impact regional cultural systems in varying degrees, whether they are accepted or rejected is irrelevant, for they affect the formation of an individual’s identity regardless. The mere transmission of the systems comprising the Meta-Symbolic Order into regions where they have never been experienced before effects the cultural systems of the relevant Symbolic Orders. The resulting alterations in Symbolic Orders change the substance of the cultural constructions that are matrixed into individuals during the Identity Matrixing process; this in turn brings about the creation of new identity types in the respective regions: the cultural systems blend and generate hybrid amalgamations that spawn transcultural landscapes. Many of the concepts that comprise the transmissions pulsing through the Meta-Symbolic Order are constructed by economic entities. Sherif Hetata examines the increasing ‘gap between the rich and the poor’ from the ‘vantage point’ of an inhabitant of what he calls the ‘South’: here ‘South’ is used to refer to what is often termed the ‘third world,’ and Hetata juxtaposes it to ‘North’, which delineates the economically and technologically strong/controlling nations of the world14. Hetata argues that the current world configuration concentrates and centralises ‘technological, economic, informatics, and military power’15 within a limited group of countries (in his paper, the G-7), thus monopolising global power structures to a greater extent than ever before. Central to this consolidation of power within a relatively small number of multinational corporations (‘Five hundred multinational corporations account for 80 percent of world trade and 75 percent of investment. Half of all the multinational corporations are based in

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______________________________________________________________ the United States, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland’16) is AICS. In what can perhaps be seen as a post-Marxist reading of this economic situation, economic power lies within the ability to control the consumer, rather than within the control of the means of production. This point is substantiated by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, as they provide a model that reveals a ‘succession of economic paradigms since the Middle Ages’17, where economic dominance moves from the primary to the secondary to the tertiary: this represents a shifting in economic power from the agricultural cultivator and possessor of raw materials, to the processor of the materials, to the marketers and sellers of the products. Each paradigm is defined by its dominant economic sector in the following: 1st Paradigm – ‘agriculture and extraction of raw materials,’ 2nd Paradigm – industrialisation and the production ‘of durable goods,’ and the 3rd Paradigm – ‘informatisation,’ where the provision of services and the control and manipulation ‘of information are at the heart of economic’18 dominance. While each of these paradigms can easily be found in operation today, dependent upon how finely one defines regional economic parameters, it is informatisation that is the dominant force on a global scale. Consider that primary producers of coffee, the farmers, ‘receive approximately 25 - 50¢’ from a final product that ‘retails at more than $10’ in a North region. South region secondary producers, those ‘associated with transportation, storage, processing, and export’ to the North region, ‘receive 50 - 75¢. Thus, $9 out of the $10 goes to the tertiary producers, those ‘international merchants, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries’19 that are involved with the marketing and selling rather than the making of the product. In this scenario, which has become the norm rather than the exception, it is the ability to get the people to purchase the product, instead of the manufacturing of the product, where true economic power lies; moreover, the means of achieving this in the paradigm of informatisation is through the utilisation of AICS, which transmits the images and ideologies that are matrixed from the Meta-Symbolic Order to produce consumers. Economic entities are seeking to increase their profit margins by broadening their markets and improving their market shares; AICS is the principle means by which they can achieve their aims. Rather than following the past practice of meeting the needs of consumers, many economic entities’ efforts lie in programming within people, as their identities are matrixed by the Meta-Symbolic Order, the belief or feeling of need/want/desire for the products being offered. Economic entities utilise AICS to produce, or program, people to be consumers: ‘children, youth, and adults are now being programmed after they are born in the culture they imbibe mainly through the media’20 to want, to feel the need for, to have desire for, the goods that are proffered:

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______________________________________________________________ To expand the global market, increase the number of consumers, make sure that they buy what is sold, develop needs that conform to what is produced, and develop the fever of consumerism, culture must play a role in developing certain values, patterns of behaviour, visions of what is happiness and success in the world, attitudes toward sex and love. Culture must model a global consumer21. This process is clearly operating in exact accordance to the Identity Matrixing Model and the concept of the Meta-Symbolic Order devised by the authors: external cultural forces are being internalised and matrixed into individuals as part of their identities. The great danger of this situation is that consumerist control mechanisms are internalised; thus, they are able to masquerade as part of what is held, by the individual, as an autonomous decision making process. In order to maintain, or regain, autonomous decision making in the age of the informatisation, it is essential for individuals to have an understanding of the process of identity formation, to be conscious of the forces in operation within the Meta-Symbolic Order, and to devise Global Hodological Maps with which to traverse the transcultural landscape of the 3rd Paradigm. The term hodological here has been derived from Sartre, who relates it to the mapping of pathways through the ‘space in which [one] is situated,’ but situated not by ‘degrees of longitude and latitude’22, but rather through their interrelationships with other entities in the world: one forms a ‘‘hodological’ chart of [their] Umwelt … the world around [them]’23. From birth, hodological maps are matrixed into individuals as guidance systems that are utilised in navigating the socio-cultural environment. Thus, a hodological map can be held as an internalised system of behavioural and communicative patterns, which are constructed from the elements of the various Symbolic Orders acting upon an individual. In the current transcultural paradigm, ‘a complex global dynamic is emerging which produces a new unstable field, which we are struggling to map’24. In order to exist and thrive upon this field, individuals must possess Global Hodological Maps. To form Global Hodological Maps, it is vital to be aware of the cultural constructions that are being transmitted by AICS, which act as programming forces, and which are aspects of the Meta-Symbolic Order. If this is to occur, individuals must be cognisant of the identity formation process; only then will they be able to weigh the forces operating upon their identities. The Identity Matrixing Model proposed offers a theoretical apparatus which accounts for the myriad factors of both the relevant Symbolic Orders of an individual, which operate according to the concept of Vertical Matrixing, specifically, and those of the Meta-Symbolic Order,

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______________________________________________________________ which functions on the global level as an Horizontal Matrixing layer; armed with this knowledge, it will then be possible for individuals to construct Global Hodological Maps with which to autonomously navigate the transcultural landscapes shaped by the 3rd Paradigm.

NoteV 1 J Lacan, ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, J Rivkin and M Ryan (eds), Blackwell Publishers Inc., Oxford, 1998, pp. 178. 2 ibid., pp. 178. 3 ibid., pp. 178. 4 ibid., pp. 178. 5 ibid., pp. 178. 6 ibid., pp. 178. 7 J Rivkin and M Ryan (eds), Literary Theory: An Anthology, Blackwell Publishers Inc., Oxford, 1998, pp. 123. 8 Lacan, op. cit., pp. 179. 9 ibid., pp. 179. 10 Rivkin, op. cit., pp. 124. 11 J Lacan, A Sheridan (trans), The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Vintage Random House, London, 1998, pp. 279. 12 ibid., pp. 279. 13 R Sokolowski, Introduction of Phenomenology, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000, pp. 9. 14 S Hetata, ‘Dollarization, Fragmentation, and God’, in The Cultures of Globalization, F Jameson and M Miyoshi (eds), Duke University Press, Durham, 1998, pp. 274-275. 15 ibid., pp. 274. 16 ibid., pp. 274. 17 M Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001, pp. 280. 18 ibid., pp. 280. 19 Hetata, op. cit., pp. 276. 20 ibid., pp. 277. 21 ibid., pp. 277. 22 J Sartre, H Barnes (trans), Being and Nothingness, Washington Square Press, New York, 1992, pp. 372. 23 J Sartre, P Mairet (trans), Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Routledge Classics, London, 2009, pp. 38 – 39.

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M Feathersone, ‘Genealogies of the Global’, in Theory, Culture & Society: Special Issue on Problematizing Global Knowledge, M Featherstone and V Couse et al (eds), Sage Publications, London, vol. 23, nos. 2 – 3, March – May 2006, pp. 387 –392.

Bibliography Featherstone, M., ‘Genealogies of the Global’. in Theory, Culture & Society: Special Issue on Problematizing Global Knowledge. M. Featherstone and V. Couse et al (eds), Sage Publications, London, vol. 23, nos. 2-3, March – May 2006. Hardt, M. and A. Negri, Empire. Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, 2001. Hetata, S., ‘Dollarization, Fragmentation, and God’, in The Cultures of Globalization. F. Jameson and M. Miyoshi (eds), Duke University Press, Durham, 1998. Lacan, J., A. Sheridan (trans), The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Vintage Random House, London, 1998. –––, ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology. J. Rivkin and M. Ryan (eds), Blackwell Publishers Inc., Oxford, 1998. Rivkin, J. and M. Ryan (eds), Literary Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell Publishers Inc., Oxford, 1998. Sartre, J., H. Barnes (trans), Being and Nothingness. Washington Square Press, New York, 1992. –––, P. Mairet (trans), Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Routledge Classics, London, 2009. Sokolowski, R., Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000. Michael Kearney is Associate Professor of Critical Theory at Kogakuin University, Tokyo. He publishes and lectures on Literature, Philosophy, and

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______________________________________________________________ Critical Theory. While his recent focus has been on the formation of human identity, his main interests are Modern Literature, Post-modern Literature, and Punk. Setsuko Adachi is an Associate Professor at Kogakuin University in Tokyo. She publishes and lectures on Comparative Culture and Comparative Literature. While her focus has recently been on the formation of human identity, currently her main interest is in the rise of otaku culture.

Inside the Caves of Moon Palace: Being the Self, Becoming the Other Joana Lima Abstract Considering Linda Hutcheon’s notions of parody and historiographic metafiction, this paper attempts to demonstrate how Moon Palace’s urban and desert settings activate the memories of the past and, simultaneously, how the mythical image of the palace of dreams is disturbed by dystopian interference, questioning the collective past of the city upon a hill. The physical journeys Marco Stanley Fogg and Thomas Effing decide to undertake through the labyrinths of the urban geography and in the nothingness of the desert, along with their experiences in the caves of Central Park and Utah, are, in fact, moments of individual exploration, personal paths sketched within the coordinates of the history and the myth, travels in the process of writing, quests for meaning(s). The identity-erasing process the two travellers face while having the experience of the cave allows them to rewrite their mythic and historical existence - in their body and in their consciousness, always and already inseparable from the place they inhabit, being the I merges with being the Other, i.e., in the reinvention of the territory and in this tensional process between identity and alterity, Moon Palace tells the story of the Self becoming the Other. Key Words: alterity, cave, historiographic metafiction, identity, Moon Palace, Other, parody, Self. ***** In the American literary context, there are several novels whose narratives follow the routes of travels and travellers. The spatial images inherent to these journeys and the physical movement of the characters lead to reflections about the American mythical and cultural matrix. Paul Auster’s novel Moon Palace allows us to reflect upon this relationship between the space and the characters, underlining the progressively fragmentary condition of identity. Auster’s narrative moves from Manhattan to the American West, and is developed around the stories of three men from different generations who are linked by family ties, as we learn later. It is particularly centred on the stories of Marco Stanley Fogg and Thomas Effing, grandson and grandfather respectively, and on the way their lives are linked by unexpected events and chance, as well as by the experiences both have inside caves. The physical journeys Fogg and Effing decide to undertake within the labyrinths of the urban geography and in the nothingness of the desert, along with their

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______________________________________________________________ experiences in the caves of Central Park and Utah, are, in fact, moments of individual exploration, personal paths sketched within the coordinates of the history and myth, travels in the process of writing, quests for meaning(s). The cave is figured as a place of closure, inner reflection, identification, but it also means openness to the integration of the world; the identity definition process and the relation the subject establishes with the outer world occur simultaneously and, in this sense, ‘the cave symbolises subjectivity fighting the problems of its differentiation’1. Inside the caves of Moon Palace, Fogg and Effing recover the lost Eden, the geographical keeper of the primordial sense, allowing their body and consciousness to discover and (re)define the I and the Other. In the reinvention of the territory and in this tensional process between identity and alterity, Moon Palace tells the story of the Self becoming the Other. In Central Park and in the Utah desert, the two travellers submit themselves to a process of decorporealisation and identity erasure – both face moments of body tribulations, delusion and madness, both leave their identity behind – while emptying their mythical and historical existence, and they reassume, through the experience of the cave, their corporeal status, being the I becoming the Other, integrated in a rewritten space that is the world. The caves of Moon Palace activate memories from the past. The passage from the old continent to the new territory of the city upon a hill is relived by Fogg and Effing and a ground zero is offered to both characters. Through post-modernist narrative techniques, the mythical image of the palace of dreams, of America as the utopian city upon a hill is, however, disturbed by dystopic interference of fragments of the American history, moments which subvert and problematise that same history, questioning American collective past. According to Linda Hutcheon, post-modernist fiction is conscious about and reflects the idea of history as a construct. Hutcheon argues that post-modernist fiction recovers texts and contexts of the past and history is rewritten through metafictional strategies, namely parody and historiographic metafiction. Parody performs an ironic play with conventions, highlighting the difference within similitude, the change within continuity, the critique within repetition. By establishing an informed dialogue with the past and through the use of metafictional devices, parody is able to question and subvert historical narrative without denying it. These paradoxical relations mean that parody performs two simultaneous actions: it promotes the continuity of the cultural heritage and it changes the representations of this same culture - ‘a kind of contesting revision or rereading of the past that both confirms and subverts the power of representations of history’2. Hutcheon considers parody to be extremely important within the context of postmodernism: ‘Parody is a perfect postmodern form, in some senses, for it paradoxically both incorporates and challenges that which it parodies’3. She

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______________________________________________________________ also believes that this self-reflexive discourse is intimately related to the social discourse4. Linked to the notion of parody is the concept of historiographic metafiction that ‘works to situate itself within historical discourse without surrendering its autonomy as fiction’5. The relationship between historical discourse and the fictional plan is characterised, according to Hutcheon, by its complexity, involving interaction and mutual implication6. In Moon Palace, American historical narratives are integrated into Fogg and Effing’s personal memories and are relived in the caves of Central Park and the Utah desert: the discovery and exploration of unknown territories, Christopher Columbus, China which, in fact, was America, the American west, the conflict with the Indians, the Vietnam war, weapons, bombs, nuclear power, space exploration and the lunar mystery, music, baseball, sacred stories, and textual elements of the universal literature mix into the individual stories of the characters. The physical and textual spaces become labyrinths within the American continent. In Central Park and in the Utah desert Fogg and Effing find archetypical words and colours and these neutral territories become spaces of artistic creation. The caves, by calling these original archetypical languages, allow Fogg and Effing to travel within language and write their own lives - an act of artistic creation anticipated in Victor Fogg’s words: ‘every man is the author of his own life’7. Fogg’s uncle was never ‘tired of expounding on the glories hidden in’ Fogg’s name8, linking it to historical, cultural and literary characters, whose identity and accomplishments are materialised in their relation with space: Marco, naturally enough, was for Marco Polo, the first European to visit China; Stanley was for the American journalist who had tracked down Dr. Livingstone ‘in the heart of darkest Africa’; and Fogg for Phileas, the man who had stormed around the globe in less than three months9. If a person’s name contains within itself a principle of identity, in the case of Fogg, the main character and narrator of Moon Palace, this identity suggests a complex relationship between the name, the journey and the place. Because Fogg considers himself to be an explorer, he conflates his journey with his own body: ‘travel was in my blood, that life would carry me to places where no man had ever been before’10. He is a new pioneer and with his uncle’s help he reinvents the mythical conquer of the American west: ‘we had developed a game of inventing countries together, imaginary worlds that overturned the laws of nature’11. The words and the stories, the legends and myths of ancient peoples narrated by Victor Fogg fill in Marco’s imagination, offering new adventures and projecting new worlds.

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______________________________________________________________ Victor Fogg’s death has a serious impact in Marco’s life. His naive and childish world order is deeply affected and replaced by uncertainty and emptiness. This sad event, nevertheless, seems to deepen Marco’s link to the travel, the place and the word. Trying to avoid the confrontation with the chaos which invades his reality, he dedicates himself to the 1492 books his uncle had given to him before he had left for college and decides to begin his own expedition. Although they limit Fogg’s existence to an imaginary place, circumscribing the movements of his body to his mental space, the 1492 books assure the continuity of his education as an explorer, while bringing back the historical memory, Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America: ‘It was almost like following the route of an explorer from long ago, duplicating his steps as he trashed out into virgin territory, moving westward with the sun, pursuing the light until it was finally extinguished’12, anticipating and leading the way to Central Park. In this urban park, Fogg finds a zero degree of spatiality: ‘this was New York, but it had nothing to do with the New York I had always known. It was devoid of associations, a place that could have been anywhere’13. Perfectly aware of the geographical design of the city, Fogg appropriates the park, makes it his mental property, reinventing the myth of the Promised Land. It is inside this neutral territory that Fogg lives the experience of the cave. In a first stage, from a symbolic point of view, the entire park is a cave, a ‘miniature world’14 conceived by Fogg. Later, the experience is circumscribed to a small cave discovered by Fogg in that same park when his extreme physical weakness makes him look for a shelter. Central Park is, in fact, a spiritual place, allowing isolation and reflection, giving this urban pioneer the possibility of exploring the territory inhabited by his interiority: It became a sanctuary for me, a refuge of inwardness against the grinding demands of the streets. There were eight hundred acres to roam in, and unlike the massive grid work of buildings and towers that loomed outside the perimeter, the park offered me the possibility of solitude, of separating myself from the rest of the world15. If New York streets are dominated by the bodies which circulate inside the frenzy urban pace and act according to a set of pre-determined, accepted and expected rules - ‘In the streets, everything is bodies and commotion, and like it or not, you cannot enter them without adhering to a rigid protocol of behaviour’16, in Central Park, the bodies acquire new shapes, reaching the freedom of an exclusively sensorial movement: ‘People smiled at each other and held hands, bent their bodies into unusual shapes, kissed’17. It is in this spatial context that Fogg, feeling that he was ‘blending into the environment’18, begins to face his identity changing process. This fusion with

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______________________________________________________________ the environment and the lack of interference from the outer world allow him to redefine his inner life: In the park, I did not have to carry around this burden of self-consciousness. It gave me a threshold, a boundary, a way to distinguish the inside and the outside. If the streets forced me to see myself as others saw me, the park gave me a chance to return to my inner life, to hold on to myself purely in terms of what was happening inside me19. In Central Park, Fogg’s identity is not a result of other people’s vision; its definition is given by his inner life. Simultaneously it is possible for him to accomplish the task of seeing the Other, by exploiting his own senses: ‘I spent a good deal of time just watching people: studying their gestures and gaits, thinking up life stories for them, trying to abandon myself totally to what I was seeing’20, ‘if this time was going to have any meaning for me, I would have to live in it as fully as possible, shunning everything but the here and now, the tangible, the vast sensorium pressing down on my skin’21. The relation Fogg establishes with the physical space as well as the decision of centring his perception of the world in his sensorial experience make him transfer all the journeys accomplished through the books and their stories to the natural scenery, with real people. Fogg’s growing identification with the space where he moves turns to be very important in terms of his artistic education. However, and inversely, it results in the character’s physical weakness and in the progressive erasure of his body: ‘I’m starting to shrink, I said to myself, and suddenly I heard myself talking out loud to the face in the mirror’22. His consciousness contemplates a face in the mirror that is no longer his; the reflected double seems to be separating from its referent. Fogg’s consciousness does not recognise his new bodily identity. Due to Fogg’s extreme sensorial exploration, his body, though weak and lacking strength, wins over his consciousness and determines his total isolation from society. In an animal-like movement, in the primitive absence of the human and the social, Fogg finds shelter in a space formed by some rocks inside the park and returns to the wild, inhabited territory: ‘The rocks formed a natural cave, and without stopping to consider the matter any further, I crawled into this shallow indentation’23. The physical weakness and the disease lead Fogg to a state of near unconsciousness which forces him to reflect on his progressive physical degradation expressed in dreams of feverish intensity and constantly changing visions. Moving between these body tribulations, Fogg finally leaves the cave and within a state of semi-consciousness, he obsessively repeats words, reducing them to sounds, depriving them from their meaning,

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______________________________________________________________ emptying them: ‘I remember pronouncing the words Indian Summer over and over to myself, saying them so many times that they eventually lost their meaning’24. Simultaneously, in the same feverish delirium, he transforms the urban space into the historical scenery of the original frontier: Then, without any sense of falling asleep, I suddenly began to dream of Indians. It was 350 years ago, and I saw myself following a group of half-naked men through the forests of Manhattan. It was a strangely vibrant dream, relentless and exact, filled with bodies darting among the light-dappled leaves and branches. A soft wind poured through the foliage, muffling the footsteps of the men, and I went on following them in silence, moving as nimbly as they did, with each step feeling that I was closer to understanding the spirit of the forest25. Kitty, his girlfriend, eventually finds him lying outside the cave. She kneels down before Fogg and he notices her crying: Kitty was the one I saw first, but I didn't recognise her, even though I sensed that she was familiar to me. She was wearing her Navaho headband, and my initial response was to take her for an afterimage, a shadow-woman incubated in the darkness of my dream. Later on, she told me that l smiled at her, and when she bent down to look at me more closely, I called her Pocahontas26. Kitty-Pocahontas, renamed by Fogg’s words, clearly suggests the relationship between the Indians and the English colonists who arrived in Virginia. The main character of Moon Palace thus recovers the 17th century American space, offering his body to the land and, at the same time, by playing with the forms of words, removing their sense, and searching for their infinite correspondences, he rewrites historical, mythical and literary texts. Thomas Effing, Fogg’s grandfather, as we learn later, has a similar experience in the American West. Inside a cave in the Utah desert, Effing is given the right to alterity. He decides to assume a new identity, inhabiting a hidden place which once had been the home of a hermit: ‘he would simply pretend to be someone he was not’27. The immense territory and the power of its silence and emptiness make Effing feel overwhelmed: ‘The land is too big out there, and after a while it starts to swallow you up’28. If the territory claims Effing to its geography, the opposite movement is almost simultaneous, i.e., space is defined according to Effing’s consciousness: ‘There is no world, no land, no nothing. It comes down to that, Fogg, in the

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______________________________________________________________ end it’s all a figment. The only place you exist is in your head’29. However, and differently from Fogg, Effing does not allow his body to weaken, he organises ‘his life in the strictest possible way (…) limiting himself to one meal a day, laying in an ample supply of firewood for the winter, keeping his body fit’30. Although Effing’s experience can be translated into a world of infinite possibilities - ‘it was a miniature pocket of life in the midst of overpowering barrenness’31, ‘everything would be possible for him in this place’32 - it is an experience of extreme solitude for the character. George Ugly Mouth, possibly a Native American descendent, as his name and description suggest, is the only visit Effing has during his stay in the desert. ‘Effing assumed that the man was an Indian, but at that point it hardly mattered what it was’33. Ugly Mouth’s bizarre look seems to be irrelevant to Effing. In fact, Effing accepts the difference of the Other. Despite the fact that Ugly Mouth’s visit is based on a mistake, as he takes Effing for the original hermit, Effing has the possibility of rewriting the story of American colonisation, in a space which is also reinterpreted, through the stories, not always coherent, told by Ugly Mouth: ‘a story about the Navaho reservation would suddenly turn into a story about a drunken brawl in a saloon, which would then turn into an excited account of a train robbery’34. Effing’s artistic education starts with a methodical record of the provision necessary to his survival and it soon develops into drawing and painting. Art allows Effing to know the objects of the world and, at the same time, to know his own position in that same world. Life and art, real and imaginary, fact and fiction coexist within his records of the world: ‘The true purpose of art was not to create beautiful objects, he discovered. It was a method of understanding, a way of penetrating the world and finding one’s place in it’35. Effing is able to find harmony between the landscape and the initial forms of human expression; his paintings recover primitive colours: ‘the pictures he produced were raw, he said, filled with violent colours and strange, unpremeditated surges of energy, a whirl of forms and light’36. Facing the constraint of running out of painting materials, Effing starts to represent the world through writing. The records of the world, once built through images, are now a result of Effing’s relation with the word: ‘in one notebook he recorded his thoughts and observations, attempting to do with words what he had previously been doing in images, and in another he continued with the log of his daily routine’37. Soon Effing’s meticulous knowledge of the world objects and his ability to combine words allow him to organise the oral narratives of George Ugly Mouth. Effing gathers facts of uncertain and unfinished narratives, finds a way of dealing with the altered chronological sequence of the events which are referred to by Ugly Mouth, and tries to reorganise them in a unified way.

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______________________________________________________________ These narratives, together with Effing’s entire experience in the Utah desert, and all the other stories of his life are later told to Fogg by Effing himself. Fogg is hired by an old, blind, and disabled Effing and he soon finds out that his job is not only about reading books to Effing, driving him through New York, or describing everything he sees to the old man, but also, and mainly, about writing his obituary. Effing’s stories and the words which occupy his mental space are thus transmitted to Fogg, to be organised into a new text. Fogg focus his attention in the artistic truth, in the truth of the image and of the word which allowed Effing to make his personal records of the world: No matter how great an artist he might have been, Julian Barber’s paintings could never match the ones that Thomas Effing had already given to me. I had dreamed them for myself from his words, and as such they were perfect, infinite, more exact in their representation of the real than reality itself38. The veracity of the narrative is not relevant to Fogg; he does not even question Effing about it. He is aware that language constitutes reality but that it can not represent it, he is aware that history is known through partial ways of representation. This inability of language to represent reality is highlighted by postmodernist theories. The knowledge of the world, of the history of the world, is mediated by language, according to ideological, historical, political, cultural, social and economical conditions, and its representation is therefore partial and transitory. Words are not transparent, they reveal influences. History is known and told through non-neutral oral and written testimonies, and is influenced by the different social and power relations. Establishing a clear distinction between what is historic and what is fictional may be problematic, as it forces us to choose one narrative, one version. The post-modernist romance foresees this conscious and ironical confrontation between the historical and the factual world and the spatiotemporal dimension inherent to the fictional universe. Moon Palace’s narrative, influenced by parodic and metafictional devices, reflects these post-modernist assumptions. The labyrinthine route where Auster’s characters move themselves make them forget their mythical and historical existence and look at the Real in a critical, detached way, recovering texts and contexts of the past, assuming the search of an individual and a collective identity. By the intervention of mechanisms inherent to parody, the narrative fabric of Moon Palace questions the American historical discourse, proposing a reflection on American mythical and cultural matrix. The autonomy of art is still kept, but the artistic discourse inherent to the novel’s

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______________________________________________________________ narrative works as a critique towards the American historical and cultural discourses. As Hutcheon states, ‘another dimension is added through the ironic inversions of parody: art’s critical relation to the ‘world’ of discourse and beyond that to society and politics’39. Far from being just another form of aesthetic introversion, parodic intertextuality works to force us to look again at the connections between art and the ‘world’. Any simple mimesis is replaced by a problematised and complex set of interrelations at the level of discourse - that is, at the level of the way we talk about experience, literary or historical, present or past. The fact is that, in practice, intertexts unavoidably call up contexts: social and political, among others40. In Moon Palace, Fogg and Effing’s systems of perception and representation of the world do change. The spatial and temporal coordinates of the characters redefine themselves. Their bodies and signification systems take new places; their notions of being in the world are recreated. The way they experience extreme solitude, only listening to their own voice, helps them understand the world with all the voices it contains. As Auster himself explains: ‘I felt as though I were looking down to the bottom of myself, and what I found there was more than just myself - I found the world’41. Texts and contexts of the past and the always innovative element of imagination mix within the narrative, integrating the creative process, and allowing us to revisit and recover fragments of the physical, historical and mythical landscape of the American nation. It turns out to be, ‘not merely an unmasking of a non-functioning system, it is also a necessary and creative process by which new forms appear to revitalise the tradition and open up new possibilities to the artist’42. Along this journey through American texts and contexts, Fogg and Effing react to chaos and dystopia, to a myth emptied by its own history. Aware of themselves-in-the-world, they gather impressions of their existence in this same world and recover mythical and historical narratives which are integrated in the fictional universe. Inside Moon Palace’s caves we are able to remember images and words, shadows and memories, and through colours, letters, and oracular sounds, a new textual fabric is written. ‘Even if there wasn’t an actual cave, there was the experience of a cave’43.

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Notes 1 J Chevalier and A Gheerbrant, Dicionário dos Símbolos - Mitos, Sonhos, Costumes,Gestos, Formas, Figuras, Cores, Números, transl. Cristina Rodriguez and Artur Guerra, Editorial Teorema, Lisboa, 1982, pp. 180. My translation. 2 L Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, Routledge, London and New York, 1989, pp. 95. 3 L Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, Routledge, London and New York, 1988, pp. 11. 4 ibid., pp. 35. 5 L Hutcheon, ‘Historiographic Metafiction - Parody and the Intertextuality of History’, in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, P. O’Donnel and R. Con Davis (eds.), The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1989, pp. 4. 6 Parody and subversion determine the style of the post-modern literary language, promoting a self-reflexive and critical dimension, as it is also stated by Brian McHale: “Parody, of course, is a form of self-reflection and self-critique, a genre’s way of thinking critically about itself” (McHale, 1987: 145). The crossing of times lead by parody, responsible for the critical integration of the past in the present, is also highlighted by Ihab Hassan: “This makes for a different concept of tradition, one in which continuity and discontinuity, high and low culture, mingle not to imitate but to expand the past in the present” (Hassan, 1990: 21). Hassan associates the concept of parody with Mikhail Bakhtin’s notions of carnival and anti-system. The word anti-system, adds Hassan, could even replace the word post-modernism, as its playful and subversive elements promise renewal, performance and participation and are responsible for the organization of a chaotic space and for the filling in of its empty spaces. 7 P Auster, Moon Palace, Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1989, pp. 7. Fogg’s mother, Emily Fogg, is killed in a traffic accident when he is eleven years old. After his mother’s death he is raised by his eccentric uncle, Victor Fogg. 8 ibid., pp. 6. 9 ibid., pp. 6. 10 ibid., pp. 6. 11 ibid., pp. 6. 12 ibid., pp. 22. 13 ibid., pp. 56. 14 ibid., pp. 63. 15 ibid., pp. 56.

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ibid., pp. 56. ibid., pp. 57. 18 ibid., pp. 57. 19 ibid., pp. 57-58. 20 ibid., pp. 63. 21 ibid., pp. 63. 22 ibid., pp. 67. 23 ibid., pp. 69. 24 ibid., pp. 70. 25 ibid., pp. 70. 26 ibid., pp. 70. 27 ibid., pp. 167. 28 ibid., pp. 156. 29 ibid., pp. 156. 30 ibid., pp. 169. 31 ibid., pp. 167. 32 ibid., pp. 167. 33 ibid., pp. 173. 34 ibid., pp. 175. 35 ibid., pp. 170. 36 ibid., pp. 170. 37 ibid., pp. 171. 38 ibid., pp. 232. 39 L Hutcheon, ‘Historiographic Metafiction - Parody and the Intertextuality of History’, in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, P. O’Donnel and R. Con Davis (eds.), The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1989, pp. 28. 40 ibid., pp. 25. 41 P Auster, ‘Interview with Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory’, in The Art of Hunger: Essays, Prefaces, Interviews, Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1992, pp. 144. 42 L Hutcheon, Narcissistic Narrative - The Metafictional Paradox, Routledge, London, New York, 1991, pp. 50. 43 P Auster, Moon Palace, Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1989, pp. 276. 17

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Bibliography Alsen, E., Romantic Postmodernism in American Fiction. Editions Rodopi B. V., Amsterdam, Atlanta, 1996. Auster, P., ‘Interview with Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory’, in The Art of Hunger: Essays, Prefaces, Interviews. Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1992 (1991). _______

, Moon Palace. Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1989.

Barone, D., Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1995. Chard-Hutchinson, M., Moon Palace de Paul Auster, ou la stratégie de l’écart. Editions Messene, Paris, 1996. Chevalier, J. and Gheerbrant, A., Dicionário dos Símbolos - Mitos, Sonhos, Costumes,Gestos, Formas, Figuras, Cores, Números. Transl. Cristina Rodriguez and Artur Guerra. Editorial Teorema, Lisboa, 1982. Connor, S., Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford and Massachusetts, 1997 (1989). Duperray, A. (ed.), L’Œuvre de Paul Auster: Approches et Lectures Plurielles. Actes Sud/ Université de Provence-Irma (Grena), 1995. Gallix, F. (ed.), Lectures d’une œuvre Moon Palace de Paul Auster. Editions du Temps, Paris, 1996. Hutcheon, L., A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, London and New York, 1988. ________

, ‘Historiographic Metafiction - Parody and the Intertextuality of History’, in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. P. O’Donnel and R. Con Davis (eds.). The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1989.

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, Narcissistic Narrative - The Metafictional Paradox. Routledge, London, New York, 1991 (1980). _______

, The Politics of Postmodernism. Routledge, London and New York,

1989. Louvel, L., ‘Lune blanche, soleil noir. Ce que dit l’image dans Moon Palace’, in Lectures d’une œuvre Moon Palace de Paul Auster. F. Gallix (ed.). Editions du Temps, Paris, 1996. McHale, B., Postmodernist Fiction. Routledge, London and New York: 1987. Metress, C., ‘Îles et Archipels, sauver ce qui est récupérable: La Fiction de Paul Auster’, in L’Œuvre de Paul Auster: Approches et Lectures Plurielles. A. Duperray (ed.). Actes Sud/ Université de Provence-Irma (Grena), 1995. Joana Lima is an Assistant Professor of English at Universidade Lusófona do Porto and a PhD student at Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. Her main research areas include post-modernism and Paul Auster’s fiction.

Self: Hand Me Down Clothes Charlene April Clempson Abstract This presentation will focus on ‘the self and the other’ as a duality in forming and preserving an identity. Although the clothed self seems to be presented through and confined by fashion, the ‘other’ remains in the form of membership of the ‘Hand me down’ which changes the aesthetic of ones outward appearance. Items of clothing tell stories which connect the ‘Hand me down’ to its current wearer, and the wearer to the clothing’s previous occupier. Since I have a past, which is not just time, but located on a small Caribbean island, my clothing is a reminder and withholder of information, experienced and narrated. The narration enforces the ‘Hand me down’ through manipulation of one’s environment, because clothing can have multiple roles in a close-knit community. We may wonder who will inherit an object next, and when will it be passed down. The person who acquires a coveted object owns it with knowledge of its previous occupant. In the ‘everyday’ an individual’s mix of clothing may have mixed referents, which are not always understood. However, the owner has an understanding of embellished objects, which cannot be seen by the wider populace. In this paper I want to introduce my multicultural wardrobe, the wardrobe that holds the many parts of myself constructed from a Caribbean and British existence. Although their existence may conflict, these objects belong in my wardrobe. Focussing on how one’s apparel continually informs and reconstitutes one’s notion of self through its referral and embodiment of the other, clothing becomes an information system of self, a dictaphone of one’s identity. My method of investigation is practice based. I use drawing to explore and enforce memories embedded in clothing. The information which the ‘belongings’ hold needs unpacking; each item contains a multitude of historically personal emblems which challenge and define concepts of self and constitute a duality of ‘belonging’. Key Words: Clothed self, culture, family, gifts, identity, ownership, t-shirt. *****

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Introduction

This paper introduces a wardrobe of clothes connected to people; the intention is to convey a multi-formatted approach to understanding ‘the self’ which can be a visual process, not solely a theoretical construction. The visual in this case is not written down so there is decontextualisation of the object, rather than laws and rules which are written and adhered to, these laws and rules are constantly deciphered from the mixed messages of the ‘everyday’. The ‘souvenir’ will be explored in the form of cotton holiday apparel, which consists of Jamaican t-shirts and holiday vests. When gifted to another, an object gains importance because of its association with the giver. The combined narrative allows it to become an object of desire, and this object becomes familiar, like family, to us. The souvenirs I am discussing were all brought back for me from visits to Jamaica, journeys made by my family member between 1962 - 2008, symbolising nearly fifty years of a family’s preoccupation with the ‘ideal of home’. This ideal of home is not a fixed notion it is visible and can infiltrate the many parts of the self visibly, therefore the notion of otherness is also changed: preserving and re-evaluating the notion of the individual. The clothes enforce the identity of the family in a format that is acceptable to the individual through the agency of others and constitute the self as a ‘social self’1. Giving a souvenir becomes part of a set of rules in which a close community adheres to. The souvenir has a meaning, which also needs to be reconstituted so that the culture of another can be transported via material inheritance handed down to another as an enforced tradition.

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________________________________________________________________ Stewart comments on the way in which the narrative of the souvenir extends the second hand experience of another. Through narrative the souvenir substitutes a context of perpetual consumption for its context of origin. It represents not the lived experiences of its marker but the ‘second hand’ experience of its possessor/ owner2. The souvenir rarely exists on its own. Instead it forms a collection of loosely related artefacts, which gain influence through association to the materialised memory. The souvenir, through its emotional connection to another, creates boundaries, manufacturing the difference in which sameness is referenced and vice versa. When people outside of the family network, see the coveted object they do not have the same attachment to it. They have a connection not to the family object but to the wearer, during this they create their own narrative: discontinuous from the object’s tie to the family’s history. The story of the souvenir’s journey as an inherited object is attached as a way of influencing others whilst informing the self of the ‘other’. This attachment seems to reveal the way in which we are influenced; these influences become our personal identity. Csikszentmihalyi and RochbergHalton suggest, Things embody goals, make skills manifest, and shape the identities of their users. Man is not only homo sapiens or homo ludens, he is also homo faber, the maker and user of objects, his self to a large extent a reflection of things with which he interacts3. Although the focus of this exploration is the individual, the individual can be informed by another, and this can exist in many formats. The emphasis is on the personal, acting as an introduction to the notions of how the self exists within the group. The aim of this paper is to discuss the notion of migration without the receiver physically moving. In this case ideas have moved through the decoding and encoding of information that the souvenir contains. The gifted object references both the giver of the object, and the receiver when presented in different environments. The given souvenir allows things that, at first glance seem foreign to belong, because it prohibits the wearer from questioning them (they feel related to the object), this changes the meaning of all other associated objects. During gift giving the origin of the souvenir becomes of less importance, subsequently I ascribe importance to the individual rather than their place of origin. The family provides a system of origin, which can be located spatially and offers the individual a series of references, which are both personal and

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______________________________________________________________ cultural. With this in mind this paper was a way of exploring the space, the A4 page using drawing as a method of making a mark on the page, which gains importance because it can be seen, and understood. ‘It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world’4 and we gain the capacity to understand and remember due to value that is constructed and attached to objects in our surroundings. The importance of making a mark is not solely an aspect of manufacturing meaning. It is also the way in which drawing as a practice manifests the importance of things through the mark that is made. Which reveals the multifaceted way that a gift (in this case, a Jamaican t-shirt) can gain importance through it becoming visual its meanings can be manufactured: by this visual approach. Drawing makes the line become important through the visual, whilst wearing clothes can construct the way in which people can be visually and socially interpreted, through this we can pass on ourselves onto others. Through imparting ourselves onto others this importance can be written down, therefore altering the theoretical notion of the way in which we are grouped together. The processes in which we are connected together, hopes to be illustrated through a method of mixing art practice that fuel a concept through its relation to its processes. These concepts allow the notion of the gifted souvenir to be questioned, not just as a Jamaican t-shirt. The practical notion of receiving this paper as a piece of theory or even a souvenir, in discussing Jamaican paraphernalia begs the question of what we leave behind for others to receive. 2.

Old Jamaican T-shirt

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________________________________________________________________ This discussion of an Old Jamaican t-shirt will investigate the way that an unwanted item can become precious and desirable. Objects that are associated with this desirable souvenir rarely achieve the significance of the primary object, but are categorised by this association. A Great Aunty returning to Jamaica (via America), was unable to take all her possessions ‘back home’ and so gifted to her special niece, a Jamaican t-shirt, a gift given to enforce and mark the relationship. The Jamaican t-shirt was second hand. Unlike all the other second hand or handed down items, this t-shirt gained personal value, creating a difference between a cast off item of unwanted clothing and a handed down item given to represent an aspect of another. Personal value is gained through narrative, especially when one is a character within the narrative, and related to all those that are part of the story. The story becomes a living and breathing aspect of the wearer, and the souvenir evidence of the stories existence. This t-shirt was passed on when the niece became an Aunty herself, and the t-shirt was always referred to as the Jamaican t-shirt, the really ‘cool one’, creating a bias in the language used to describe it. An individual’s personal desires are often contagious. When someone is conscious of an object’s previous occupant (especially when that person is a relative), caring for the self, is demonstrated in the care of a family heirloom. The wearing of this keepsake enforces the location of the individual, the individual who is not creating or questioning the tradition but participating in it, using the object as an emblem in their possession, which represents a childhood. In On Longing, Susan Stewart discusses objects that become part of the past’s documentation. This childhood is not a childhood as lived; it is voluntarily remembered, a childhood manufactured from its material survivals. Thus it is a collage made of presents rather than a reawakening of a past. As in an album of photographs or a collection of antiquarian relics, the past is constructed from a set of presently existing pieces5. This particular t-shirt has a loose connection to its supposed country of origin (Jamaica), enforcing its desirability because it can be described as a sought after antique: ‘The antique as a souvenir always bears the burden of nostalgia for experience impossibly distant in time’6. The idea of Jamaica itself as a souvenir based on a cotton commodity, light enough to fit into a suitcase and cheap enough for all members of the system to receive, is intriguing. A commodified Jamaican identifier reveals the importance of nostalgia. Nostalgia of a personal experience of Jamaica which the giver wanted to give, however nostalgia cannot be made into an object; the souvenir becomes an object that represents nostalgia. Stewert comments:

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______________________________________________________________ The souvenir may be seen as emblematic of the nostalgia that all narrative reveals –the longing for its place of origin. Particularly important here are the functions of the narrative of the self: that story’s last point of identity7. In each case from Aunty to niece, only the primary giver has a valid connection to the souvenirs. Aunty wore the Old Jamaican t-shirt as a form of identification in a foreign country (being Britain), with confidence her identity could not be disputed. However when passed to British-born counterparts with only souvenirs and popular culture and misremembered old stories and songs to understand the Jamaican past which is not their own by birth, their understanding of ‘Jamaican’ identity is open to interpretation. One cannot classify the country itself as of importance but the individuals who cared to keep within the family system, through the constant revival and upheaval of a past that does not exist are the ones that mark re-contextualisation of Jamaican heritage. A Jamaican t-shirt becomes the marker not just of the familiar but a boundary of what is not familiar. One’s personal cultural informant can be prejudiced. This coveted object – the t-shirt - is in a sorry state. It has been worn and repaired, it has no arms - they disappeared from their seams over 10 years ago- and it is disintegrating. There are no worthy replacements and with the destruction of the object comes the disappearance of an inherited authentic Jamaican past. This Old Jamaican t-shirt is a keepsake from a cultural past that does not exist the way Great Aunty or Grandma remembered. It would disappear completely in this format if there were no more visits to Jamaica. I will now introduce you to a grandma who continued yearly journeys to Jamaica to visit the relatives that she had left behind, leaving her British family for a month or two. On her return she presented her close relatives with Jamaican t-shirts for the children and bottle of rum for the adults. 3.

Tacky t-shirts

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________________________________________________________________ In this next t-shirt, we are left to wonder, Are the words on the souvenir to be trusted? Did Grandma actually go to Hard Rock café? And why is this T-shirt tacky? Even though it is owned by me it is not felt to belong to me because of it aesthetic qualities. It cannot be thrown away so it is worn regardless and identified as tacky. The gifted object is rarely questioned unless considered imperative or unless the giver is untrustworthy. If the receiver rarely questions the gifted object then why would the giver question the souvenir that is brought in Jamaica? In this case the giver is Grandma and the receiver is a Granddaughter, whilst we believe everything the notion of Jamaica is also being compromised without prior knowledge. How can we be sure of the souvenirs authenticity? Especially when the buyer (Grandma) does not act as grandmas should. The notion of Grandma is usually figured as one who should be trusted. Therefore, if the known referee embodies this notion, they are free to exercise their agency through the objects that they give, allowing the past to be kept in the form of narrative. If we discussed Grandma’s relationship to Jamaica as very much connected to the idea of a tourist who collects the past (being a place) in the form of emblems to be revealed to those close to her, her journey, her nostalgia for a place that used to be home, forms collections of gifted items which become familiar. Turkle observes that ‘we think with objects we love; we love the objects we think with’8. Through the care of the person the transference of the care of the object, our idea of nature is recontextualised. In Western Society the way in which objects are vehicles of messages is very much accepted. ‘Barthes and Baudrillard overemphasised the importance of the end product, the sign’9. However what has been neglected is, as Pellegram notes, ‘the latent and incidental message through which an object becomes an artefact of human interaction as a residue of a social interaction’’10. This completely changes the way in which souvenirs gain attachment. If importance is placed on the sign rather than how the sign was created, how can we understand the way in which one sign becomes more important than another? Clothing gains importance through social interaction is discussed in The Restless Image11. Fashion is introduced as the way we wear clothes, and how clothes not only change ones’ outward appearance, the change initiated Is all encompassing. Clothing serves as a marker for how we desire to be perceived, as humans in our notions of different groupings, Koning comments: In reality fashion is a universal, formative principle in civilization, capable of affecting and transforming not only the human body but also its modes of expression12.

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______________________________________________________________ Clothing which has been gifted can become the residue of interactions with others, a receipt of the self in a social context. We create caricatures whose dress epitomises their character that allows stereotypes to be created. Dress therefore reconstitutes the self-linked within a group constructed through the many groups we forge relations with. When confronted by others, the Jamaican t-shirt or any other paraphernalia that has the words ‘Jamaica’ is not only gifted as an inheritance but is an emblem of an idea fuelled with generalisation and miscommunicated strategies related to a country, rather than the agency of a Grandma. As a personal inheritance the souvenir may feel like the representation of loss. If Grandma leaves for a month coming back with a tshirt, Jamaica can become thought of as a place that subtracts elements of people. Loss is made tangible and visible, (loss does not have to be aesthetically pleasing) through the remembrance of another in an object. Even if the gift were not to one’s taste, the t-shirt would be considered to be throwing away one’s relative. So all that can be done is to wear clothes purely for the consideration of another and metaphorically and physically wearing our heart on our sleeve, or what we interpret as something that is cared for. Whilst conveying the interests of the gift giver, tacky t-shirts become natural. What was once revered is now classified as a must have. In fact this is the basis that all t-shirts should mimic. Ones friends see this additional t-shirt or they are caught by this ‘restless image’ thinking of how it can belong to them to fit in with their own catalogue of appearances. This cultural reference is not owned by a nation or a race of people but it is a commodity under human construction. So others may be enticed by the desire that the wearer created for the object. ‘Tacky t-shirts’ become true possessions which means the notion of the identity is easily misinterpreted. A consequence of this misinterpretation is that people with no supposed link with Jamaica can see themselves in a Jamaican t-shirt. A Jamaican t- shirt in turn comes to be a second-hand culture, understood as being an heirloom or a birthright. It is not something that can be completely owned but borrowed when needed as the thought of belonging. The agency of another informs the self but how can all these souvenirs be stored? Which item of clothing becomes the most valued object? The aesthetics of one’s wardrobe change whether new items are added or the items are worn until they fall apart or we repair the clothing so they last a little longer. Clothing as a souvenir changes the way in which we keep and look after the visual self; with each souvenir added to this changing landscape the visible clothed self forges new parts. Which are made up of fragments of old clothes, clothes gifted by another, and the supposed new thing, which can all, be classified as being handed down.

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Through the physical act of experiencing the objects their place of origin holds little significance. All the souvenir gifted to me are brought by someone to emphasise Jamaica as a place of home, and given to relatives who consider this notion of home (Jamaica) to be ultimately foreign, unveiling the strange nature of what others give and what this interpretation of the self receives, and what is then later recorded. Wearing a Jamaican t-shirt, for my Grandma, is akin to wearing a Jamaican flag. However, on closer inspection, these souvenirs have been made in China. This is of little importance mainly because the clothing is never turned inside out and inspected for its authenticity whilst it is being worn: that would be inconvenient. It is this inconvenience, which allows miscommunication, it allows the seller of the Jamaican t-shirt to continue to buy cotton t-shirts elsewhere and the buyer of the t-shirts, to purchase large quantities of the Jamaican t-shirt for all the members of the family: but once noticed the notion of who we are, is not the same anymore. There is a need for miscommunication; there is a need for neglect or for things to be slightly overlooked. If Grandma had been overly conscious and meticulous of the way in which Jamaican t-shirts are made, then the Jamaican t-shirts may have never been purchased. ‘However it is possible for each individual to cultivate goals without producing conflict in the community’13. What was of greater importance to Grandma is that all family members were brought a souvenir, not that the notion of Jamaican identity be communicated proficiently through the t-shirts that were brought by her. If the notion of family is considered of a slight greater importance than origin: then family upstages the notion of heritage for the receiver of the souvenir.

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______________________________________________________________ ‘This would result in an integrated group of people pursuing a common goal while contributing their own unique perspectives to that goal’14. The way in which people can be identified is important as it gives the individual a sense of place and the other notices this as a form of subscription to that group. What we think we own (our belongings) connects what we think of ourselves to what we consume and how others perceive us to be. This sense of perception is manufactured with a sense of the other in mind. Miller suggests, The concept of ethnicity as a marked group makes sense only with respect to another, usually dominant, 'unmarked' and in a sense un-ethnicised group understood as British (or, more accurately, English) against which the specificity of ethnicity is defined15. Whilst Grandma is informing those close to her of Jamaica, and the family her perceptions of ‘home’ or the ideal of home is also being reconsidered. These objects that represent multiplicity through the many meanings invested, like the individuals, have to stand against the other. However only the subjects have to accept the differences (Britishness, in this case) as an important part of them. Allowing things that are not ours to own we have no choice but to own them through the agency of others. 5.

Conclusion

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________________________________________________________________ This is a discussion of the way that things can inform the self visually, producing a knowledge system of personal identity through the agency of others. The family unit becomes the power that governs parts of the individual and only the special few govern the unit. Therefore, what the family members give enforces the hierarchy whilst acting as a sign to others, who are not classified in the grouping, of their exclusion from this formation, thus creating new hierarchies in which the material is the essence of this memory. The family provides a system of origin, which can be located spatially, and offers the individual series of references, which are both personal and cultural. If these objects are evocative, what do I believe, as I am the current owner of the Old Jamaican T-shirt? With the ‘Old Jamaican t-shirt’ the notion of giving to others seemed to be of importance. Even the story of the loss is still remembered. The souvenir becomes the record of a social relationship and representation of a receiver’s value to the giver. When passed on again this desired object becomes more idol or totem, something that was and still is priceless. There is an understanding that its orientation has been recontextualised, or even concealed by the current giver, and its history distorted for the agency of others, which is enriching to those who are affiliated and come into contact with it. Caws comments: The enrichment of the self through acquaintance with and cultivation of what is found to be rewarding in all the human products and practices with which one comes in contact: I call this multicultural16. In this context the self becomes a system of reformatting in constant reference to others, whilst staying within our many conceptualised groups whether we are identified as multicultural or not. When one is classified as being multicultural we should also understand that culture is not something that can be owned. Just like a t-shirt as a Jamaican souvenir, the t-shirt is owned but with it comes an understanding that is not something that can be controlled unless it is ignored along with the souvenirs weighted family history. Grandma as Jamaican believes herself to be only Jamaican but sees the rest of her family to be dual cultured. The notion of being British and Jamaican fighting against one another but as with a discussion of a Jamaican tshirt, both things can exist without confrontation. Especially when notions are forgotten because I as the wearer do not see it as difference, or as confrontation, it is the notion of change. The multiplicity of what we identify as cultural subscription should give us choice, instead a souvenir from someone important can enforce our boundaries. These boundaries are the thought of how we place ourselves; these belongings, although they are from the reference system of others, still belong to the individual regardless of their differences. The notion of myself, ‘will put

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______________________________________________________________ a sizeable imprint on the self we become’17, our concept of self, effects who we are, which is in turn affected by what we have been classified as. When souvenirs belong, regardless of the end product it allows similar objects to also belong without prior questioning. We are multifaceted in our makeup, and the notion of others is imbedded in the souvenirs, which are given: they belong because we think it is so.

Notes 1

I Burkitt, ‘Society and the Individual’ in Social Selves: Theories of the Social Formations of Personality, Sage, London, 1991, pp. 26. 2 S Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Duke University Press, Durham, 2003, pp. 135. 3 M Csikszentmihalyi and E Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 1. 4 J Berger, Ways of Seeing, Penguin, London, 1972, pp. 7. 5 Stewart, pp. 145. 6 Stewart, pp. 140. 7 Stewart, pp. xii. 8 S Turkle, Evocative Objects: Things we Think with, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 2007, p.5. 9 A Pellegram, ‘The Message in Paper’ in D Miller (ed) Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, UCL Press, London, 1998, pp. 109. 10 A Pellegram, pp. 103. 11 R Koning, The Restless Image: A Sociology of Fashion, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1973. 12 R Koning, pp. 40. 13 M Csikszentmihalyi and E Rochberg-Halton, pp. 11. 14 M Csikszentmihalyi and E Rochberg-Halton, pp. 11. 15 D Miller, ‘Englishness and Other Ethnicities’, in Shopping, Place and Identity, Routledge, London, 1998, pp. 160. 16 P Caws, ‘Identity: Cultural, Transcultural, and Multicultural’ in D Goldberg (ed) Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1994, pp. 372. 17 I Burkitt, Social Selves: Theories of Self and Society, Sage Publication, London, 2008, pp. 3. 

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Bibliography Baudrillard, J., The System of Objects, Verso, London, 1968. Belk, R.W.,‘Possessions and the Extended self’, in Journal of Consumer Research, vol 15, no.2,1988, pp 139-168. Berger, P.L and T. Luckmann., The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Double Day, New York,1966. Burkitt,I., Social Selves: Theories of the Social Formation of Personality, Sage, London, 1991. Burkitt, I., Social Selves: Social Selves: Theories of Self and Society, Sage, London, 2008. Caws, P., ‘Identity: Cultural, Transcultural, and Multicultural’, in D. Goldberg (ed.) Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994. Certeau, M. de., The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berekley, 1984. Csikszentmihalyi, M and E. Rochberg-Halton., The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981. Derrida, J., Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, University of Chicago Press, USA, 1996. Douglas, M. and B. Isherwood., The World of Goods, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1978. Foucault, M., The Order of Things, Tavistock, London, 1970. Foucault, M., The Archaeology of Knowledge, London, Tavistock. 1972. Goffman, E., The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Penguin, London, 1990.

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______________________________________________________________ Kopytoff, I.,‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’, in A. Appadurai (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986. Koning, R., The Restless Image: A Sociology of Fashion, George Allen and Unwin Ltd,London, 1973. Kwint, M., Material Memories: Design and Evocation, Berg, Oxford, 1999. MacCannell, D., The Tourist: a New Theory of the Leisure Class,: University of California Press, London, 1999 [1976]. Mauss, M., The Gift: Focus and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, Norton ,New York, 1967. Miller, D., ‘Behind Closed Doors’, in Home Possessions, Berg, Oxford, 2001. Pellegram, A., ‘The Message in Paper’ in D. Miller (ed.) Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, UCL Press, London, 1998. Richins, M.L., ‘Valuing Things: the Public and Private Meanings of Possessions’, Journal of Consumer Research, 2001, vol 24, no.3, pp. 504 -21. Rousseau, J., The Social Contract, Penguin classics, London, 1968. Stewart, S., On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Duke University Press., Durham, 1998. Turkle, S., Evocative Objects: Things we Think With, Cambridge, MIT Press, Massachusetts, 2001. Turner, V., The Ritual Process, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969. Weber, M., The Sociology of Religion. Social Science paperbacks, 1971. Charlene April Clempson is in the early stages of a Practice led PhD at Loughborough University. Her research is on the exploration of the notion of self through memory, objects and their systems. All images are the property of Charlene April Clempson. 

Divide, Diverge and Conquer within Context: An Investigation into the Evolution and Synthesis of Female Fashion and Social Representation in the Arabian Gulf Stephanie Ryan Cate and Annemarie Profanter Abstract Clothing serves many functions for humans across the globe, from identifying with a specific group to protecting oneself from the elements. In the Arabian Gulf region female Islamic clothing has recently been a source of both fascination and repulsion for those unfamiliar with traditional and more fundamentalist Islamic interpretations of appropriate women’s clothing. In keeping with Kaiser, Nagasawa and Hutton’s reinterpretation of Symbolic Interactionism as it applies to fashion at both the global and local levels the ambivalence relating to these garments and the symbolic ambiguities inherent in their constant renegotiation are investigated.1 As scholars living and conducting research in both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman, the rapid changes in social coding as expressed though women's outer clothing was quite notable and gave rise to a desire to further investigate the implications behind these. Contemporary Saudi Arabian and Omani women are surrounded by the fashion styles, social mores and taboos, and musical influences of their global neighbours subtly influencing the ways in which they express their national, religious and tribal identities. Do their emerging fashion ethics reflect their changing societal positions and, if so, what markers can be distinctly identified as preceding or antedating these changes? This paper identifies rising indicators and reflects on the underlying societal influences propelling these stylistic and cultural expressions. Key Words: Gulf Arab Women, Islamic Fashion, negotiated meaning, social representation, symbolic interactionism. ***** This paper is not meant to be a treatise on the current veiling debates in the Arabian Gulf and around the world nor is it an exhaustive manifesto delineating fashion and its place in contemporary Arabian society. It is a commentary which incorporates the researchers’ fieldwork and symbolic interactionist fashion theory to address the evolution in women’s outerwear fashion occurring in the Arabian Gulf over the last 10 years. The focus in our work was meant to highlight neither religous imperatives nor western influences persay but instead to provide an overview into the various

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______________________________________________________________ influences waxing and waning in Muslim women's fashion in this almost homogeneously Muslim region. Veiling as a reflection of cultural mores is the norm in this area and scholars that have spent many years researching the particulars of this practice are better able to identify and comment on its overall impact on the social development of women. One such scholar is Dr. Reina Lewis who states ‘use of veiling, as a dress act and visual trope, is endlessly repositioned by changing world events and constantly reframed by nuanced shifting responses of veiling communities’2. In keeping with Lewis' interpretation of veiling as applied to the ubiquitous Arabian gulf Muslima outergarments as a whole our ethnographic report focuses on these shifts within the Arabian countries of the Sultanate of Oman and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Arabian or Persian Gulf region - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - are united economically through such institutions as the Gulf Cooperation Council or G.C.C. for short, socially through their tribal conformations and religiously through the almost homogenous Muslim identity of Arabs in the region. Certain chapters or suras from the Qur’an, and the Hadiths associated with the Prophet Mohamed, the founder of Islam, are used by the government of Saudi and the Imams of the Gulf region to explain the need for women’s codified Muslim clothing. Oh Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and all believing women that they should draw over themselves their jilbab. This will be more conducive to their being recognised (as decent women) and not annoyed. But God is indeed much forgiving, a dispenser of grace3. The policy regulations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman on the southernmost tip of the Saudi Arabian peninsula actually vary widely, although the cultural prescriptions regarding them are relatively similar. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia it is written in the law that women, all women, in the Kingdom must cover their body and heads with an ubiquitous outer coat/dress like garment referred to as the Abaya, more commonly known in the west as a Chadoor, and a headscarf known as the Hijab, or Shayla. In Saudi this ruling covers women of all religious backgrounds and nationalities. Saudi women are known for their ‘conservative’ look, unrelieved black headscarf and face veil and Abaya, whereas Omani women choose a more colourful selection of Islamic fashion to reflect their varied allegiances. Although women from some areas and tribal groups in Oman do wear the black Abaya, veil and face covering, other

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________________________________________________________________ regions wear extremely colourful versions of these garments that can be made from many different fabrics and materials as well as coupled with the opaque black fabrics. Saudi is primarily made up of Bedouin tribal groups that either remain within the desert regions or have relocated to urban centres; whereas the Sultanate of Oman has many sub groups contained within its citizenry such as Bedouin tribal groups, Baluchi nationalized citizens, and Harsoussi fisher and herding groups and Jebbali landowners. These affiliations to both regions and sub groups are reflected in female fashion styles identifying their religious, economic and tribal allegiances. In the Sultanate of Oman, the Hijab and Abaya are worn through personal choice and cultural tradition since the formulation of the Basic Law in 1996 did not enforce the wearing of these garments by women and as such the use of these items varies when comparing urban centers to rural areas and directionally; north to south and east to west. Islamic fashion in Urban areas of Oman has changed rapidly from the historic Black Abaya to reinterpretations of the Jilbab and Hijab since that time. The names associated with Muslim women’s outer wear have many designations. These include the Hijab/Shayla, which refers to a head scarf or, more generally, to clothing that follows the laws of Allah, the Khimar, a triangular or circular head-scarf, the Niqab, a facial veil, the Abaya Jilbab, a – dress-like over garment that covers body, and the Burqa, a garment that covers the body from head to toes. Often the general public in places like Europe and America has only one image of this clothing, often garnered from infotainment type news programming and more often resembling the current burqa worn in Afghanistan than the more fashion conscious Arabian Gulf abayas. Yet the reality is that this region hosts a number of different styles and interpretations of proper Islamic outerwear that have been adapted from sources as widely varying as the Paris and Milan runways and the Chinese interior steppes as well as regional dress and whose popularity continues to fluctuate contingent upon the ‘fashion du jour’ in spite of ‘the homogenization of a transnational Islamic identity and the conceptualization of a global Islamic community (ummah) that are taking place over the internet’4. As social scientists, educators and researchers with a vested interest in women’s issues, the developments in social theory and the politics of identity that are at the investigative forefront of renewed societal interest on individual and collective identity5 invite comparison here due to the adjudicated clothing homogeneity coupled with the desire to publicly express identity with sub-cultures and specific groups. One function of this clothing is cultural identification but it can also be used as a harbinger of societal transformation occurring in part in response to the impact of globalised, easily accessible media and mobile technology, and the growth of the mass market. Khaleegy (Gulf) women use their Muslim

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______________________________________________________________ outerwear not only for self and regional communal identification but many also choose to participate in the female global fashion industry while attempting to retain their regional and religious traditional outward reflections. The constant influx of female media images from around the world is often a trigger for a creative out flux of readymade garments, accessories, make-up and hair products that are developed by local and regional women owned boutiques, designers and cosmetologists and adjusted to meet societal imperatives regarding standard outerwear for both urban and rural buyers. Since this can create a tense relationship between imprinted societal standards and although ‘ambivalence is an integral human condition that finds an outlet in the capitalist marketplace, in the form of appearancemodifying commodities’6, it still requires a liminal stance on the part of women entrepreneurs and fashionistas. Although Saudi and Oman are religiously homogenous, their tribal cultures and norms differ slightly and thus are reflected in their clothing choices. Leading sociologist Herbert Blumer’s 1937 foundational research in symbolic interactionism has been applied in numerous cultural and political identity settings as it focuses on deriving meaning from social behavior and human interaction and acts as the platform that informs our look into Gulf Muslima fashion and political and social connectivity. An interpretivist contextual view of Blumer’s three concepts of symbolic interactionism: how meaning is derived, the relationship between meaning and social interaction, and the interpretive process of negotiating meaning, provide insight into the Saudi Arabian governmental and societal standards currently applied to women’s outer garments, ‘a flexible and heterogeneous discourse that functioned through contradiction rather than despite it, in which women’s cultural activities were coded as one among a number of competing discourses’7. This process facilitates awareness of how women are co-opting traditional tribal and religious garments into modes of social representation that incorporate numerous influences from abroad as well as home; one example being the popularity in 2007 of the Moroccan influenced Abaya with an attached hood and belled sleeves, often trimmed in brightly coloured and patterned silks, that was worn coupled with a sheer black nikab and hijab in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia or with a matching fabric hijab alone in Muscat the capital of Oman. Western perception of the Abaya as a restrictive and limiting garment is only one reflection since ‘the images that Arabs exchange with Turks or Iranians’ are much more nuanced, but still carry the heavy aftermath of history’8. The ambiguities and paradoxes that reside in a specified and somewhat limited form of dress as it relates to individual representation of self and tribal and national affiliation are subtly challenged by the ingenuity of designers in their use of fabrics, textures, accessories and shapes as well as

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________________________________________________________________ the end market cost restraints for consumers. Herbert Blumer’s foundational theory of symbolic interactionism and Kaiser et al’s development along fashion theory lines have expanded the way in which negotiated meaning is assigned to various external symbols of desirable feminine attributes. One example is ‘a perfect walk yet limped ever time she was looked at’9 which is an external response to an internal mandate to appear soft and in need of help. In Saudi Arabia and Oman the abaya serves to obscure yet enhance the feminine silhouette that can help reinforce and encourage entrenched societal beliefs about Muslim females. By applying Kaiser et. al.’s fashion theory to the relationship between socially accepted styles and those that are considered undesirable at point a but transmute into acceptable at point b it became clear that an exchange was occurring that could be quantifiable regarding specific uses of Muslima outerwear to both enhance status, identify positions both politically and socially and clarifying tribal groupings. All the while noting that the association between appearance and character remains so common in stereotyping of race and gender, that its ubiquity naturalises it,10 while it remains liminal. Muslim women often refer to other Muslimas as their sisters, denoting a strong kinship based on their religious affiliation. Arabian Muslim women find fashion serves a number of functions from the purely pleasurable to the social statement. As referenced above and reflected in the saying ‘one should pick one’s battles with care’ the abaya appears to be here to stay and so the next step for many women is how to adopt it as their own banner and flag; adorned with symbols that clarify their various social networks and styled in ways that announce their regionalism and tribal affiliations. As a woman’s statement and not a male regulated item the challenge lies in how to individualize, affiliate with social and political groups and reflect the times. This requires constant renegotiation of meaning and representation of current superimposed societal requirements of self-representation, due to rapidly evolving economic and social developments. One indicator of the Gulf region’s rising importance economically and socially is the investment of world fashion designers in Islamic fashion. As Bruce Oldfield the famous British fashion designer was quoted as saying ‘it would be a good idea to make an Abaya. Why not, every leading designer seems to be doing this nowadays’11. The emphasis on Islamic fashion continues to gain ground as evidenced by Dubai’s hosting a worldwide fashion show focused on Islamic fashion featuring work from some of the most famous fashion houses like Chanel and Gucci in 2006’12. Abayas are available ready made from the smallest souks to the largest couture shops in the modern malls. They range from the original ‘abaya ras’ or head abaya that is placed over top of the tightly wrapped hijab and face-covering nikab on the top of the head and has the silhouette of a triangle, and is required by many of the schools in Saudi Arabia for teachers uniforms, or a simpler

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______________________________________________________________ modern version that is a box like structure with rectangular arms. The batwing or butterfly arms styled, princess line, pleated, or yoked; there are so many styles coming into fashion it is difficult to keep up with them much less what they indicate about an individual or the area itself. Samiha Samoor, a Bahraini Fashion Designer, states that due to religious imperatives or their traditional families, 75% of Bahraini women wear the Abaya, and that by adopting more fashionable stylings they feel empowered and connected to the wider world13. The use of Swarovski crystals in the Islamic designs on the sleeves, yoke and hems of both abayas and hijabs indicates higher economic status and a more liberal family, the wearing of a metallic hawk hood style nikab reflects a woman’s affiliation with one of the Bedouin tribes of western Oman and southern Saudi Arabia, and a woman wearing an open fronted sheer Abaya with a fashion scarf as a hijab in Oman is proclaiming her modernity and reinforcing her affiliation with her country and religion. Noora, an Omani businesswomen, often wears a rather sheer abaya over a long skirted formal jacketed business suit with a sheer fashion hijab decorated in crystals to work at a 4-star hotel in Muscat, thus establishing her position as one of prominence, the crystals; modernity but modest, the choice to wear both hijab and abaya, and her families stance on women’s issues, her position at the hotel. Ethnic and geocentric clothes from around the world are finding expression in Gulf abayas and hijabs: ‘Garments like the kaftan and salwaar kamiz - originally items of ethnic dress that were associated with a particular country or group of people - have now spread throughout the Islamic world’14 and their influence can be seen in many of the thread work designs and stylings of contemporary abayas. In 2008 a ruling came down from the Saudi courts that women should only have black abayas and if they had to have decoration it should also be in black thread and preferably matte, thus limiting women’s options for a period of time as regards public outerwear. In Saudi physical expression and presence in everyday common public interactions and the embrasure of ‘The universe of artistic and literary creation allows us to convey the real world with a special twist that is typical of that universe’15. by creatively working within the adjudicated regions of appropriate outerwear.The glimpse of a woman at the Marina mall in Al Khobar wearing a Van Gogh influenced thread work on her Abaya reflects the influence of artistic reference in some Saudi women’s lives today. Another example would be a Saudi journalist who, although unable to do face to face interviews with males or pay her bills in public offices with no women’s section, can nonetheless make a personal statement while walking in non-segregated spaces: Wrapped within societies mandated garments but draped by her choice of accoutrement and visible accessories that claims her

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________________________________________________________________ own space. Similar to ‘Turkish modernization, conceptualized as a project of social engineering, resulted both in the homogenization and the absorption of different identities within the monocultural identity’16 Saudi Arabia’s modern day emphasis on alignment with their determination of appropriate female dress has accomplished a similar result. The rise of veiling-fashion as a transnational phenomenon positions womens and mens bodies at the centre of political debates and struggles surrounding what it means to be ‘modern’ and Muslim today17. The global mass media has made its impact not only on women’s Islamic fashion in the Gulf but is being reflected now by young men in Saudi as well. A recent article from Dammam referenced men being threatened with jail if they came to the Mosque in inappropriate fashions. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the Wahhabi religious leaders, Imams, act as both the judiciary and the executive arm of the government as it relates to how people conduct their daily lives in accordance with Qur’anic guidelines. The Imams of the Eastern Region of Saudi declared ‘a ban on persons wearing ‘unusual and immodest clothes’ from entering mosque premises, including those with ‘strange hairstyles or who use women’s bands in their hair’’18. So even within the confines of the bastion of Islam a visual exchange of ideas among the genders in pushing the boundaries set by historic tradition is occurring. In contrast to Saudi Arabian fashion processes, Oman held its first fashion show in Muscat in 1993 with the theme of introducing designs which maintained the identity and originality of traditional costumes while catering for contemporary tastes in colour and fabric19. The transnational cultural flow between Arab Omani’s, Zanzibari/Swahili Omani’s (mixed Arab and African peoples often from Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar) and Omani-Beluchi (tribesmen originally from Beluchistan) citizens and Harsussi/Mehri (originally from Yemen) to list a few has strongly differentiated the capital city of Oman in some respects from its northern neighbour, at least as far as women’s fashion is concerned. This urban comingling of divergent Islamic tribal groups places emphasis upon ‘the significance of the trans-cultural city as a space which exposes people to alternative ways of being and in so doing, offers them the possibility of personal metamorphosis’20. As little as 10 years ago few women worked in shops other than the Bedouin or Zanzibari Omani’s and then heavily swathed in old style Abaya’s and Hijab and Nikab, today women of all Omani strata can be found working within various businesses and layering their looks with a plethora of divergent styles of Shayla (Hijab), and Abaya,

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______________________________________________________________ With shops, or fashion shopping, operating as an indicator of modernity, and with Islam often presented as resistant to modernity, the presence of veiled shop girls becomes a potent mix of two contrasting spatial and social codes, often still interpreted as a temporal clash21. The black abaya worn in the Arabian Gulf has become almost symbolic of Arab womanhood for many in the West. But is it a symbol that women of the region adopted themselves? Or was it superimposed due to varying societal needs? Which came first, social regulation or geographic climate imperatives? The reality today is that these outerwear items are ubiquitous yet liminal in their ability to be adapted to female need and desires. Women are embracing the opportunity to synthesise many of their personal experiences and intentions into designs that can be seen and interpreted in the public sphere. ‘Embedded in today’s hijab is imagery that combines notions of respectability and morality, identity and resistance’22. One Omani fashion designer, Kifah Dadiq Abduwani, who started to make a name for himself in the late 90s was vocal in his desire to change the way women in the sultanate viewed and wore their abaya. When shopping in Al Qurm, in the heart of the capital city of Muscat, it is evident that change is occurring rapidly and the messages contained within the voluminous garment shifting as well. The way a hijab is wrapped around the head or snugged over the face and nose convey affiliation with geographic regions as well as with specific informal social institutions. The ability of women to both divide the issue from its nationalistic intent, diverge into new shapes and silhouettes and conquer the often limiting associations with the abaya and hijab. This implies the following: Resistance through the hijab or against it, in tangible form as attire or in intangible form as a code of behaviour, has generated a dynamic discourse around gender, Islamic Ideals, Arab society and women’s status and liberation23. The Sultanate of Oman has two primary poles of influence, one being the capital region of Sharquiah and the other the southern province of Dhofar. The strong tribal influence on the peninsula comes out in women’s fashion differences between areas and it is sharply outlined between the two provinces. In 2005, the province of Dhofar started a private/government collaboration of the new Dhofar University. The practice in that place had been for all women to fully cover, Abaya, hijab and nikab. The Sultan decreed that the University was opening for business as a co-ed facility and that no female students would be allowed to wear the nikab in class. In

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________________________________________________________________ response to that decree, 70 male heads of household went to jail for a short time until they agreed to allow their daughters to attend and remove the face veil. In Britain in 2006 a local school teacher ‘Aisha Azmi lost her case at industrial tribunal (appeal pending) against the school that sacked her for wearing a niqab in the classroom’24. These two examples highlight the level of adversarial opinion stirred by the use of the nikab; either as a means of social identification with a religious group or a as a perceived requirement for socially modest behavior. Although the cases are from two different regions and types of educational institutions they both highlight the uses with which the nikab can be associated. Today, Dhofar University has no problem with women refusing to uncover as women themselves have started to debunk standing social belief regarding a girls ‘loose morals’ if uncovered. However, initially it was quite difficult to quell rumors regarding the decency or lack thereof of Dhofari female students due to social stigmata relating to uncovered faces. The styles of abayas have begun changing in direct response to women’s ability to be in a public place with their face uncovered and not have their reputations compromised. This societal shift shows how fashion can be both instigator and respondent to societal shifts: Producers and consumers participate in the production of new Muslim subjectivities through the set of new meanings and practices enabled and promoted by this industry and its surrounding political and cultural debates25. The micro and macro level processes at work in the Islamic fashion industry consistently present a symbolic ambiguity in the ways in which meaning is assigned to various parts of the outer wear and how rapidly that line can move between conservative apparel and that which is more globally influenced thus reflecting back on Kaiser et.al.’s assertions that ambivalence lies at the heart of the relationship between fashion and form. By beginning to investigate contemporary expressions of traditional female Islamic wear in the Arabian Gulf region in the light of sociological and fashion theories the researchers hope to provide a contribution to a growing body of research that engages in reflecting on women’s experiences from contextual key symbols. The Gulf has gone from more liberal stylings of Abayas prior to 9/11 and back to more conservative ones for 7 years and now appears to be relaxing the guidelines and incorporating more daring and innovative looks. The question posed at the beginning of this paper regarding the indicators of social change within Islamic Gulf fashion has barely been scratched and there remain many intriguing points of inquiry to develop, however, one thing is clear that what in the West is perceived as categorically

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______________________________________________________________ conservative and generalized is in the Arabian Gulf full of hidden meaning waiting to be explored.

Notes 1

S B Kaiser et al, ‘Construction of An SI Theory of Fashion: Part 1. Ambivalence and Change’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, 1995, pp. 172-183. 2 D A Bailey & G Tawadros, Veil: Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2003, pp. 10. 3 A A Yusuf, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary. Dar AlMushaf, Damascus, Syria, 1983, 33:59. 4 Yaqin, A., ‘Islamic Barbie: the Politics of Gender and Performativity’. Fashion Theory, vol. 11, issue 2/3, 2007, p.174. 5 C Calhoun, Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1994, pp. 9. 6 S B Kaiser et al, ‘Construction of An SI Theory of Fashion: Part 1. Ambivalence and Change’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, 1995, pp. 172-183. 7 R Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation, Routledge, London, 1996. 8 T Labib, ‘Preface’, in Imagining the Arab Other: How Arabs and NonArabs view each other, Labib, T. (ed.), Tauris, London, 2008, pp. X. 9 T Labib, ‘Preface’, in Imagining the Arab Other: How Arabs and NonArabs view each other, Labib, T. (ed.), Tauris, London, 2008, pp. VII. 10 J Finkelstein, ‘Chic Theory’. Australian Humanities Review, vol. 5, March, 1997, para. 8. 11 J Robinson, ‘Million Dirham Abaya’, The National, 2008, par. 4, viewed on 22 August 2009, http://www.thenational.ae/article/ 20080628/ PAGE THREE/ 925497070/1119/NATIONAL&profile=1119. 12 H M Akou, ‘Building a new “World Fashion”: Islamic Dress in the 21st century’. Fashion Theory. vol. 11, issue 4, 2007, pp. 405. 13 S Hamada, Abaya is the latest fashion craze in the Arabian Gulf. Women Gateway, 2009, viewed on 14 July 2009, http://www.womengateway .com/enwg/Life+Style/Beauty/Abaya.htm 14 H M Akou, pp. 405. 15 T Labib, ‘Preface’, in Imagining the Arab Other: How Arabs and NonArabs View Each Other, Labib, T. (ed.), Tauris, London, 2008, pp. IX. 16 B Kilicbay & M Binark, ‘Consumer Culture, Islam and the Politics of Lifestyle: Fashion for Veiling in Contemporary Turkey’, European Journal of Communication, vol. 17, 2002, pp. 495-511.

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B Gokariksel & A Secor, ‘New transnational geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey’, Area, vol. 41, issue 1, 2009, pp. 6. 18 A H Al-Sama’ei, Mosques get tough on stylish worshippers, viewed on 4 September 2009, http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID =2009083148391. 19 P Lancaster, Oman rings the changes (first fashion show in Oman)’, The Middle East, 1st July 1993. 20 E Tarlo, ‘Hijab in London: Metamorphis, Resonance and Effect’, Journal of Material Culture, vol. 12, issue 2, 2007, pp. 132. 21 R Lewis, ‘Veils and Sales: Muslims and the Spaces of Postcolonial Fashion Retail’, Fashion Theory, vol. 11, issue 4, 2007, pp. 425. 22 F El Guindi, ‘Veiling Resistance’, Fashion Theory, vol. 3, issue 1, 1999, pp. 71. 23 Ibid., pp. 71. 24 R Lewis, ‘Veils and Sales: Muslims and the Spaces of Postcolonial Fashion Retail’, Fashion Theory, vol. 11, issue 4, 2007, pp. 435. 25 B Gokariksel & A Secor, ‘New transnational geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey’, Area, vol. 41, issue 1, 2009, pp. 8.

Bibliography ‘Arab women's fashion between mythology and modernity’. ArabicNews.com, 1995, viewed on 25 May 1998, http://www.hartfordhwp.com/archives/27b/126.html. Akou, H. M., ‘Building a new “World Fashion”: Islamic Dress in the 21st century’. Fashion Theory. vol.11, issue 4, 2007, pp. 403-422. Al-Sama’ei, A. H., Mosques get tough on stylish worshippers. viewed on 4 September 2009, http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home. regcon&contentID=2009083148391. Bailey, D. A. & G. Tawadros, Veil: Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2003.

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______________________________________________________________ Calhoun, C., Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1994. Cholachatpinyo, A., B. Fletcher, I. Padgett & M. Crocker, ‘A conceptual model of the fashion process – part 1: The fashion transformation process model’. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, vol. 6, issue 1, 2002, pp. 11-23. Cumming, V., ‘World of the Body’. The Oxford Companion to the Body, 2003, par. 11-14, viewed on 22 August 2009, http://www.answers. com/library/World%20of%20the%20Body-cid-29011. El Guindi, F., ‘Veiling Resistance’. Fashion Theory, vol. 3, issue 1, 1999, pp.51-80. Finkelstein, J., ‘Chic Theory’. Australian Humanities Review, issue 5, March 1997. Gokariksel, B. & A. Secor, ‘New transnational geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey’. Area. vol. 41, issue 1, 2009, pp.6-18. Hamada, S., Abaya is the latest fashion craze in the Arabian Gulf. Women Gateway, 2009, viewed on 14 July 2009, http://www.womengateway com/enwg/Life+Style/Beauty/Abaya.htm. Harré, R., ‘Rom Harré on Social Structure and Social Change: Is the Social Scientific Concept…’. Strydom European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 5, 2002, pp. 124-133. Kaiser, S. B., H. Richard, S. Nagasawa, & S. Hutton, ‘Construction of An SI Theory of Fashion: Part 1. Ambivalence and Change’. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, 1995, pp. 172-183. Kilicbay, B. & M. Binark, ‘Consumer Culture, Islam and the Politics of Lifestyle: Fashion for Veiling in Contemporary Turkey’. European Journal of Communication, 17, 2002, pp. 495-511.

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________________________________________________________________ Labib, T., ‘Preface’, in Imagining the Arab Other: How Arabs and NonArabs view each other, Labib, T. (ed.), Tauris, London, 2008, pp. V-X. Lancaster, P., ‘Oman rings the changes (first fashion show in Oman)’. The Middle East, 1 July 1993. –––, ‘Veils and Sales:Muslims and the Spaces of Postcolonial Fashion Retail’. Fashion Theory, vol. 11, issue 4, 2007, pp. 423–442. Lewis, R., Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation. Routledge, London, 1996. Qaboos Bin Said, The White Book; The Basic Law of the Sultanate of Oman, 1996, viewed on 10 August 2009, http://www.omanet.om/english/ government/basiclaw/overview.asp?cat=gov&subcat=blaw. Ribeiro, A., Dress and Morality. Batsford, London, 1986. Roald, A. S., Women in Islam: The Western Experience. Routledge, London, 2001. Robinson, J., ‘Million Dirham Abaya’. The National, 2008, viewed on 22 August 2009, http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080628/PAGETHREE /925497070/1119/NATIONAL&profile=1119. Snow, D. A., ‘Extending and Broadening Blumer’s Conceptualization of Symbolic Interactionism’. Symbolic Interaction, vol. 24, no. 3, 2001, pp. 367377. Tarlo, E., ‘Hijab in London: Metamorphis, Resonance and Effect’. Journal of Material Culture, vol. 12, issue 2, 2007, pp. 131-156. Weston Thomas, P., Theories of Fashion: Costume and Fashion History. 2006, viewed on 14 July 2009, http://www.fashionera .com/sociology _semiotics.htm#Fashion%20As%20A%20Barometer%20Of%20Cultural%20 Changes. Yaqin, A., ‘Islamic Barbie: the Politics of Gender and Performativity’. Fashion Theory, vol. 11, issue 2/3, 2007, pp.173-188.

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______________________________________________________________ Yusuf, A. A., In The holy Qur’an: Text, translation and commentary, AlMushaf D. (Ed.), Damascus, Syria, Dar Al-Mushaf, 1983. Stephanie Ryan, Cate, MA, Doctoral Student Political Science University of Innsbruck Austria, is an American Scholar teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who has since 2000 resided in the Arabian Gulf doing fieldwork in various disciplines and teaching at different Universities across the Arabian Peninsula. She held the position of associate chair of the preparatory at Prince Mohammed Bin Fahad University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2007/2008 and has been affiliated with this renowned private university since then. She has done numerous projects in the Dhofar and Muscat regions of Oman with both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Media and Information as well as working closely with Kingdom Schools in their early development in Riyadh, KSA. Her current research includes socio-political and cultural studies involving gender, family, and urban impact, as well as a study on Muslim immigrants with the Frei University of Bolzano. Annemarie Profanter, Dr. Dr. Mag. MSc, holds a master’s degree in Psychology of Education from the University of London and doctorates in both Education and Psychology from the Leopold-Franzens-University in Innsbruck, Austria. She is a tenured member of the Faculty of Education at the Free University of Bolzano. She has done visiting lectureships and fellowships for such esteemed international institutions as “The City University of Science and Information Technology” in Peshawar, Pakistan and the American University affiliated, “Dhofar University” in Salalah, Sultanate of Oman, as well as “Prince Mohammed University” in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is currently working on projects dealing with Arab women’s changing identity conceptions in the Gulf, as well as with processes of integration and migration in Europe with a number of esteemed Arabian and European colleagues.

The Space of Salsa: Theory and Implications of a Global Dance Phenomenon Katherine Wilson Abstract Referencing the growing popularity of Salsa dance around the world, this article analyses the implications of the global appropriation of Salsa as a hybrid cultural movement. Examining Salsa’s historical inception as an amalgam of multiple influences, I point to the ways Salsa’s increasing global mobility complicates the assumed homogeneity of terms such as authentic and indigenous. My study draws on Arif Dirlik’s account of indigenism and the ‘politics of place,’ and Arjun Appadurai’s conceptions of globalisation and ethnic identity. My scholarly work on Salsa is also predicated by my own experiences as an international, Latin dance performer and instructor. As a member of a professional cosmopolitan community who participates in a perpetual migration of Salsa instructors, I reveal how Salsa undergoes a unique transcription in local and transnational spaces. As Salsa continues to spread to diverse places, it is defined by new localities, fragmenting its own groundedness in Latin culture. In the confrontation between the global and the local, I contend that the paradoxical nature of Salsa as a ‘local that moves’ reveals contradictions which challenge the very foundations of the global/local binary. I conclude by examining the evolution of locality as a ‘forward-looking’ temporal conception. Key Words: Authenticity, dance, community, global, globalisation, indigenism, Latin, local, Salsa. ***** 1.

A World in Step In 2005, Scott Baldauf, a reporter stationed in war-torn Afghanistan, noted that ‘after Sept. 11, and the media barrage proclaiming a ‘clash of civilizations’ between the West and the Arabic world, here was evidence of something quite the opposite. Instead of a clash, this was a blend, and a gorgeous one at that’1. The blend Baldauf highlighted in his story was Salsa music. In Afghanistan, he experienced Salsa played in Arabic but, during his years as a reporter, he had also heard this music sung in Persian, Dari, Urdu, Hindi, Indonesian, Thai, Sinhalese, and Nepali. Salsa’s apparent universality led Baldauf to ask, ‘Is this the rhythm of a world in step?’ and conclude with an even more grandiose query - ‘With such universal acceptance, one starts to think of whether salsa can contribute to world peace’2. In Salsa, Baldauf

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______________________________________________________________ felt he had found a key to world unity. Something about Salsa would bring us together. The word ‘Salsa’ itself, first coined by Cuban composer Ignacio Pineiro in his 1937 song ‘Échale Salsita’, alludes to a blending or spicy mix. ‘Put a little salsa on it!’ was the musician’s cry during this era. If Salsa is a mix that can create an effect beyond the dance floor, one of the critical goals of this project is to analyse the implications of this blend. The suggestion, supported by Baldauf, is that Salsa’s inherent musical blending precipitates a more complex interfusion of cultures or ‘civilizations’. If so, then how is this blend accomplished, and what are the consequences of its global appropriation? Furthermore, what insights can this hybrid cultural movement offer against the prevailing binary conception of global and local cultural productions? As a professional Latin dance performer and instructor, my initial experience with the Salsa dance exemplifies the universal character of this movement. The year was 2001 and I was studying Mandarin in Beijing, China. A kind friend rescued me from my language work by inviting me to a swanky club called Latinos, located in one of Beijing’s hip enclaves. Entering the club, we were greeted by an electric mass of couples spinning around the dance floor. After a while of watching enviously from my table, the owner of the club, a Venezuelan named Alejandro, came over and asked me to dance. After picking up the basic steps, I then experienced the inevitable symptom commonly expressed by salseros (dancers of Salsa) upon their first exposure to Salsa - I fell madly in love. Several years and many lessons later, I found myself, during summer and winter breaks from graduate school, performing and teaching Salsa professionally across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Working as both a dance instructor and graduate teaching assistant, I find the physical work of teaching dance a nice balance to the mental work of teaching literature. It seems inevitable that these two pedagogical worlds would eventually collide. My scholarly work in Salsa has led to what Jonathan Skinner, an Irish anthropologist and fellow salsa enthusiast, terms the ‘professional gain of an immersive and embodied research project…a ‘passionate engrossment’…but to the loss of a personal hobby’3. 2.

The Evolution of a Movement I am now a member of a professional cohort who participates in a perpetual migration, peddling Salsa instruction around the world. There is no end to the growing numbers who desire our ‘product’. This cosmopolitan community has largely developed around multinational dance conventions known as Salsa Congresses. Major metropolises on every continent host conventions at set times during the year, attracting hundreds of local and international dancers. These annual congresses enlarge the local scenes

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________________________________________________________________ which, in turn, support travelling instructors. This is the state of Salsa today a globalised movement dramatically expanded from its historical roots. The origins of Salsa go back to 1930s Cuba. In its earliest forms, Salsa was a blend of Cuban music styles such as Son and Danzon, African drum patterns, Spanish troubadour guitar and French folk dance. From Cuba, Salsa spread around the Caribbean intermingling with other musical forms (Merengue, Bomba, Plena) and eventually migrated to New York with the Puerto Rican diaspora in the 1950s. In New York, Puerto Rican musicians such as Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri incorporated African-American jazz to create the brass-inflected sounds of modern Salsa. Today, Salsa’s global movement retains local characteristics of its origin: The majority of Salsa is still sung in Spanish around the world. Salsa is still considered a ‘Latin’ dance, with all of the attached stereotypical references to ‘Latin spiciness and sexiness’. Yet, what does it mean for Salsa to retain ‘local characteristics?’ How does Salsa, supposedly a local product, travel globally? I suggest below that, in the confrontation between the global and the local, the nature of the Salsa movement reveals contradictions which challenge the very foundations of this binary. 3.

A Question of Vocabulary Teasing out the essential problems in global/local thinking relies on a careful consideration of vocabulary. How do we define ‘global’ and ‘local’? A ‘rectification of names,’ according to Arif Dirlik, is vitally important ‘if we keep in mind that what is at issue is not the truth of names…but some measure of clarity in our political and cultural discourses’4. In globalisation theory, a call for the rectification of names coincides largely with political shifts in the past thirty years: Dirlik describes the end of the twentieth century as marked by radical evolution which demands a renewal of our primary, paradigmatic conceptions. He goes on to define our current changing political landscape as producing ‘transformations in the meaning of the terms with which we seek to comprehend those changes; transformations that arise not only from the changes themselves but also…from the appropriation of concepts for competing political projects’5. The theory of globalisation has evolved significantly since its mass appropriation in public and scholarly debate. Globalisation is often automatically paired against terms such as ‘local’ and ‘indigenous’, and various conceptions of these ideas generate vastly different consequences depending on our use of theoretical lenses such as economics, politics, or cultural theory. For this study, I limit my discussion primarily to cultural aspects of globalisation theory. I appreciate Roland Robertson’s conceptualisation of globalisation as ‘the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole’6. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines ‘global’ as ‘pertaining to or involving the whole world; world-

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______________________________________________________________ wide; universal’. I would like to supplement the definition of global by using it to name something which traverses or moves around the world. This meaning stands in direct contrast with the OED’s definition of local as ‘Pertaining to or concerned with ‘place’ or position in space’. I define ‘indigenous’ as referencing the culture of the local which, according to Dirlik, ‘foregrounds an almost absolute attachment to place understood concretely’7. Each of these definitions assumes an attachment to or detachment from place corresponding to the conceptions of local and global. A local which moves is thus a contradiction in terms. Salsa, then, embodies a certain paradox. 4.

Articulating the Paradox In general, anti-globalisation rhetoric often upholds the suspicion that globalisation threatens the extinction of local culture. Viewed in this way, globalisation theorists such as George Ritzer bleakly diagnose the world as a place where ‘the truly local has almost entirely disappeared’8. Ritzer concludes pessimistically by stating that ‘those who oppose globalisation can continue to support the local as an alternative to the global. However, the thrust of this analysis leads to the conclusion that this effort is likely to fail’9. I believe that a more realistic way to evaluate the global and the local is to question the binary itself. While I will argue that an analysis of the Salsa movement provides an avenue to problematise conceptual assumptions, integration of the global and local is not a new endeavour. In fact, the complication of these terms has led to somewhat absurd configurations. Labelled as some of the ‘most grotesque words that academics have managed to coin’ (Boyd), theorists have stretched to create awkward portmanteaus such as ‘glocalization’ (Robertson), and even ‘grobalization’ (Ritzer). I have no desire to supplement this vocabulary with my own verbiage. The global/local debate, in terms of this study, does not mean that the terms global and local disappear. Local populations have appropriated Salsa in unique ways for unique purposes. The paradox is that the local has taken on characteristics of the global and vice versa. Arjun Appadurai clarifies this modern dilemma by suggesting that ‘the central paradox of ethnic politics in today’s world’ is that characteristics traditionally defined as local (whether language or skin colour or neighbourhood or kinship) have become globalised. According to Appadurai, these characteristics act as ‘a staging ground for identity’ but that ground is now ‘spread over vast and irregular spaces as groups move yet stay linked to one another’10. This idea of a ‘staging ground’ not only connotes locality, but authentic locality. One of the draws of Salsa dancing is the idea that one can take part in and intimately appropriate an authentic (and exotic) ‘Latin’ experience. With enough dedication and hard work, one can truly become an authentic salsero. Salsa, as a ‘local that moves’, fragments its own locality, or

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________________________________________________________________ groundedness in Latin culture. Salsa does not become ‘less Latin’ as it spreads around the world, but its Latin identity becomes displaced. Is an Australian salsera dancing to the music of a Japanese Salsa band doing anything ‘Latin’? Benedict Anderson’s configurations of an ‘imagined community’ may inform our understanding of the displacement of Salsa’s Latin identity. While Anderson theorised the nation as a community which is sustained through the imagination of its members, various Salsa communities around the world utilise the imagination in a similar way - these local scenes imagine their own ‘authentic and indigenous’ Latin culture. This results in a multiplicity of Latin cultures as Salsa spreads to diverse places and is defined by new localities. Another level of displacement takes place when Salsa is transmitted by non-Latin instructors, especially when their students identify themselves as Latin. The claim that Salsa is ‘in the blood’ is a common misconception among many of my Latino students new to Salsa. Having had this phrase engrained into them from a young age, these students express shame and anxiety that they do not have Salsa ‘in the blood’. Inherent knowledge of Salsa symbolises their authentic Latin-ness. Yet, for those who learn to dance as adults, especially when their instructor is not Latin, these students’ personal experience clashes with their understanding of authenticity. Salsa ‘in the blood,’ I reassure my more timid dancers, today simply means a rhythm one grew up hearing. For these students, the crisis between the global and local is intimately played out in the formation of their identity. 5.

A New Understanding of Indigenous In broader debates on globalisation, there is a similar feeling of lost authenticity when Salsa is referred to as an indigenous movement that has been globalised. This view tends to subscribe to the notion that local, indigenous culture is a homogeneous whole which is bastardised by globalisation. Yet, Salsa was an amalgam of multiple influences from its inception. Defining indigenous is always open to manipulation. An indigenous cultural movement like Salsa can be said to generally represent the community of origin. However, Salsa undergoes unique transcription in every local culture it is appropriated into. As an example of this transcription, Salsa became highly standardised when it was incorporated into Ballroom dance in the 40s and 50s. Ballroom ‘Mambo,’ as it is now called, takes particularly ‘ethnic’ traces of Salsa’s overt Latin heritage and breaks them down into structured, step-by-step instruction, even to the extent of explaining the use of proper ‘Cuban or Latin hip motion’. This sterilised form of Salsa is sometimes scorned in other Salsa communities, but can any locality ever point to a version of Salsa which has remained pure from its inception?

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______________________________________________________________ Another example of local interpretation within the United States is the political assimilation of Salsa dance by minority populations. These groups use Salsa to express their own non-dominant ethnic formations. In a study of Jewish-Latin recording of Salsa music in the 1960s, Joshua Kun describes the mediating quality of Salsa music for Jews in the United States who saw themselves as ‘doubly marginal: marginal to the majority culture, but also marginal among minorities’11. Kun states, ‘Jews went Latin to avoid being fully white and avoid being traditionally and exclusively Jewish; Latin music offered Jews the opportunity to remain ethnically unique from the American monoculture without having to risk performing themselves as singularly Jewish…Latin music was outsider music, but it wasn't their outsider music, which made it a perfectly comfortable place to be, allowing Jews to be inside and outside at once’12. This ‘perfectly comfortable space’ of being inside and outside is exactly the space where the Salsa movement functions today around the world. Salsa as a local which is ‘outside’ further challenges the meaning of local as attached to interior place. Kun’s characterisation of Salsa reveals an indigenous movement which is able to be captured and appropriated in positive ways. Modern Salsa is outsider/insider music because it is owned by none and all. Kun goes on to describe Salsa as an ‘appealing third option [between full assimilation and ‘entrenched’ ethnicity], one that refused assimilation as much as it refused ingroup tribalism’13. In this case, Kun displays the significance of the Salsa movement in affording minorities groups a way to perform ethnicity locally and re-imagine themselves within a modern paradigm. 6.

Global Downturn and New Localities During a recent visit to an empty Salsa club in Hoi An, Vietnam, the owner informed me that with the drop in tourism came a general drop in dancers. While other global centres such as Singapore, New York, Mumbai, and London still thrive, some of the smaller areas have struggled to keep cliental. Blaming slow business on the general economic downturn, this particular owner was also vexed by the continued trend of fly-by-night Salsa instructors who came and quickly left. He indicated that he longed for a dance instructor who would commit to living in the community - someone who would make Hoi An his or her base. The local salsa community, he intimated, required this coherent stability to simply keep motivated. While this proprietor and I are now officially ‘friends’ on Facebook, and I have a perpetual invitation to teach at his club whenever I am in town, the feeling is that he would have preferred that I stay in the community long-term. In other words, it would have been better if I was local. This exchange, in my mind, provides valuable insight into the changing nature of the global/local binary. If we are to rectify the meaning of these terms, following Dirlik, then I feel it is important to note that local, in

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________________________________________________________________ the sense of a foreign dance instructor such as myself becoming ‘local’ in Hoi An, has particular connotations. Local here does not mean where one is from, someone’s ethnic roots or language of origin. It does not necessarily connote a level of indigenous identity arising from familial ties or neighbourhoods with shared history. It shrugs off notions of authenticity - the difference between being local and being ‘a local’. This new local suggests a forward-looking commitment to community, of expats and ‘natives’ alike. In other words, this commitment still retains temporal qualities (it requires years to be put in); it is still tied to place, as in the formal definition, but it assumes a global mobility of its members. Local communities challenge individuals such as international Salsa instructors, asking where will you choose to dedicate your life now and will that place be here? In terms of Salsa, this conception of local is sustained even when ‘outsiders’ bring global goods into the community. This new local is not threatened by the multi-cultural blend. It is fully able to incorporate this blend because it is fully able to incorporate the global, if the global is willing to ‘stay put’ and be consumed by the local. While Baldauf’s overstated query at the beginning of this essay, imagining global peace initiatives through Salsa music and dance, seems a far and idealistic stretch, continued study in the dynamics of local Salsa communities should cause us to question some of our most deeply held assumptions about the nature of globalisation and locality. If traditional conceptions of local pertain to a (closed) shared past, the evolution of local communities such as those created around Salsa dance seems to indicate the inverse - a willingness to engage in a shared present and a commitment to a shared future.

Notes 1

S. Baldauf, ‘Our Reporter Asks, ‘Is This the Rhythm of a World in Step?’’ Christian Science Monitor, vol. 97.219, 2005, p. 1-2. 2 Baldauf, pp. 2. 3 J. Skinner, ‘Women Dancing Back – and Forth: Resistance and SelfRegulation in Belfast Salsa,’ Dance Research Journal, vol. 40.1, 2008, pp. 68. 4 A. Dirlik, ‘Globalization, Indigenism, and the Politics of Place,’ Ariel vol. 34.1, 2003, pp. 15. 5 A. Dirlik, pp. 15. 6 R. Robertson, ‘Globalization as a Problem,” The Globalization Reader, 3rd edition, Frank J. Lechner and John Boli (eds), Oxford, Blackwell, 2008, pp. 87.

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______________________________________________________________ 7

A. Dirlik, pp. 16. G. Ritzer, ‘The Globalization of Nothing,’ SAIS Review, vol. 23.2, 2003, pp. 189. 9 G. Ritzer, pp. 199. 10 A. Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,’ The Globalization Reader, 3rd edition, Frank J Lechner and John Boli (eds), Oxford, Blackwell, 2008, pp. 102. 11 J. Kun, ‘Bagals, Bongos, and Yiddishe Mambos, or The Other History of Jews in America,’ Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 23.4, 2005, pp. 64. 12 Kun, pp. 64. 13 Kun, pp. 64. 8

Bibliography Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’. The Globalization Reader. 3rd edition. F. J. Lechner and J. Boli (eds.), Oxford, Blackwell, 2008, pp. 95-104. Baldauf, Scott, ‘Our Reporter Asks, ‘Is This the Rhythm of a World in Step?’’ Christian Science Monitor, vol. 97, 2005, pp. 1-2. Boyd, Danah, ‘G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide’, O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, San Diego, CA. March 6, 2006. Dirlik, Arif, ‘Globalization, Indigenism, and the Politics of Place’, Ariel, vol. 34, 2003, pp. 15-29. Intro to Hip Motion Overview, Ballroomdancers.com, Los Angeles, 2009, viewed on February 5, 2009, Kun, Joshua, ‘Bagels, Bongos,and Yiddishe Mambos, or The Other History of Jews in America’, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 23, 2005, pp. 50-68. Skinner, Jonathan, ‘Women Dancing Back - and Forth: Resistance and SelfRegulation in Belfast Salsa’, Dance Research Journal, vol. 40, 2008, pp. 6577.

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________________________________________________________________ Ritzer, George, ‘The Globalization of Nothing’, SAIS Review, vol. 23, 2003, pp. 189-200. Robertson, Roland and Richard Giulianotti, ‘Forms of Glocalization’, Sociology, vol. 41, 2007, pp. 133-152. Robertson, Roland, ‘Globalization as a Problem’, The Globalization Reader, 3rd edition. Frank J. Lechner and John Boli (eds.), Oxford, Blackwell, 2008, pp. 87-94. Katherine Wilson is currently pursuing her PhD in English Modern Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Her most recent research involves post-atrocity narratives of Cambodia and East Timor—two places where she has also taught Salsa.