Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

Africa. This partially accounts for the relucta~~ce of some to recognise
discourse as a site of power relations and to consider the extent to which their
self-proclaimed interpretive mastery echoes the broader oppressive relations
of racist, classist and patriarchal society.
The methodological and performative question of 'how we write about others'
on a move away from tideiity to a 'pure Marxism' towards 'post-Althussel-ian
post-colonial theories' that confront 'discourse as a site of struggle' (L,ewis
a:17). Deconstructiol? is welcomed because its 'emphasis on discursive practice
Lewis (1992: 16) detected 'some spurious wrangling about the distinction betw ters the Marxist and Althusserian hegemony in South Africa', and post-colonial
"about" and "for"' at the conference and yet referred with approval to 'the views is an aid to decoding 'the persistence of the hegeinonising thought in left-wing
prominent academics like Gayatri Spivak'. She went on to identify an allian ries and practices' (Ilendricks & Lewis 1994:70,7 1 f). This perspective has
'[m]ainstream feniitlists and neo-Marxists' who employ the tactic of unde meshed with a view of post-colonial theory that privileges South Africa and
black solidarity by referring to the class position of black academics (1992:2 erica and excludes the rest of Africa:
cabal of neo-Marxist revisionism and white power is seen as the main obstruction to
opening up of academic discourse. Lewis ( 1992: 17,2 1) concluded by 'locating a w
out of this apparent impasse' which involved opening up interpretations 'to
In the United Statcs. with a contest comparable to the South Ali-ican onc of
interlocking relationships of racial discourses ... (Lewis 1997:2).
expanding and non-hierarchical categorisatio~~ of positioned interpretations
women's experiences'.
Academic discourse has been central to the proposed solution to the il
that feminism reaches 'when researchers merely reaffinn their right to represent
(Hendricks & Lewis 1994:73), and academic exchange degenerates into an e
contest between experiences. However a suspicion of the norms of a universalisin
academic 'language of decorous and professional disinterest' entails that
experiences of the oppressed are granted pre-discursive epistemological and rn
priority:
allenge of interrogating the social function of academics has been displaced by
cation ofthe nonns of academic discourse that retains alr inflaiec! co~lception of
eratory potential of academic autonomy. WIiat is obscured in this inslance of thc
ent post-Marxist collegiate mantra is the fact that the prioritisat~ori of 'discourse as a
of struggle' as a means of countering the constrictions of an ossified Marx~sl
odoxy accords with the Althusserian pro-ject of re1 Quel. Evidence that the term
st-colonial' originated in the left-wing theories and practices of economists in ihe
seventies makes the prospect of transcending the Marxian legacy via this route
problematic". Sensitivity to the imperatives of an imperialistic academic
there si~ould be no nced for blacks or ally othcr marginalised groups to
authenticate thcir critiques of structural inequalities and power relationships
(f lendricks Kr Lewis 1994:721).
lace resuits in an ahistorical view of academic discourses that subsuines
tion of the social function of the university and its personnel into the intraadernic
question of competing theories.
I turn now to another response to the crisis of legitimacy evidenced at the 199 1
Still, monopolisation of apodictic infallibility does not rule out the concession th 1 conference. This time the attempt to negotiate the power and privilege associated
Inany local feminist literaiy critics have registered sensitivity to the question of so ' the representational role of academics, in particular those engaged in feminist
identity (see Lewis 1993). There is a realisation that the effacement of the privile studies, also foregrounds the question of academic discourse. The ideal of
institutional space of analysis is not siniply dependent on the traditional acad academics is replaced by the idealisation of the mediating social function of
posture ofomniscicnce. Erasure can as well be ac,hievcd via positioned interprets s and the role of the university. Like its insurgent counterpart, the realisation
fc>regrounding social identity when, under the cover of appealing to the ethics elnic autonomy within a pluralist academe also obscures critical examination of
discour-se, positional a~ltobiographical anecdotes pre-emptivcly position potenti
critics as victimisers. At a time when universities are being called upon to reclai
legifinlacy by representing society (and so secure government funding), the metonym
social function of academics.
vaiuc of personnel and their inferred or declared experiences are clear
cornmodifiable, Thc central question, then, is not 'who should write about who111'
'how we write about others', and whether 'academic and socially dominant f'e~ilin
[are] universalising tl~eirex~eriei~ces' (Hendricks Xc Lewis 1 994:70t)I2.
inist literary studies
rgaret Daymond introduces South Afvican Feminisms, the 'first collectio~l of South
ican literary feminist writing to be published in the United States', by reflecting on
199 1 Natal conference at which the 'researcher-theorist's "structural domination"
r subjects, making them into objects of enquiry . . . exploded':
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"
Sce M;lliaraj ( 1994) hi- a lllcosctical disci~ssioil of gt.lltlcl-. a~ici Walkcr's (l9(34:9
ci-iticisnis oi'M;ili;ir.aj's 'ohsc~i~-c. ;~cniicn~icnlly o\~csloailctl icr~ii~'. See Larrain (1 979) on Althusser, and Ahmad ( 1995) on the post-colonial