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