Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

'rile 1-c~cnrclicr-rese~cl~cd division was alig~icci by black women at tlie
confcf-cnce wit11 another-that hetwecn acarlernics and activists. Academics
\\;ere c11:11-gctf will1 assunling to .speak Sol-' aciivist wonren's groups withnut
i]ucstioning the implications oi' t11c11. onn actions: their. doing so in
inipenctrnhlc academic largon ... was felt by mnny delegates to he a
delibcratcly cxcl~isionary tactic. With literal-y st~rdies \vhat is finally at issuc
in c(>~iilicls slich as thcsc is \vhclher a negotiated. ratller tl-ian assunicd.
rc!atio~~sl~ip 01' iiiterests bctwecn womcn can bc cstablisllcd. ]:or this to
liappen. ccrtain recognitions lrave to bc reached by all sides in tllc Souill
Ahic.in dcbate ovcr rcpreseiztalio~~ .... po\f:cr and privilege aftkct crll
groupings (class. cillnic, reiigio~~s, age. etc.) and will constn~~tly need lo be
ncgotiateil .... It also involvrs learning to 'listci~' to those wllo have been
Otlicrcd (Daymond 1996:xxl).
thc excite~ncnt of consciously being in arid of' liistory which, wliile it is
dilficull arid fill1 ol'contradictions. is perhaps not available to members of
Inore settled societies (Daymoiid 1996:xuiiit).
tual progress enables the academic to look back over the legacy of the past and
e 'imported condescension' of traditional South African English literary studies
ond 1996:xix)". Desplte the difficulty of an
open. syn~metrical dialogue between the country's women .... there are
esautlples of dialogue at work in the polity and of its leading to a strategic
cooperation betwecn wonler~ (Daynlond I996:xxiii: and sccMecr 1997).
erial forlnations of social conditions
r-edressive, soteriological 'challenge that academics like me pdCe is to shedt an enabling institution and medium of representation,
htibii of power' Waymond 1996:xix). This is a habit cxel-cised througll, and sustain
to the establishment of a democratic polity based on
by, the medium of academic discoul-se:
r.
Jllc o\vncl'SIlip of knowiedge-in it.; sc\~cral aspects of represelltatioll~
ill1el-J)rclation. commcnta~y and thcoly--is being contested ill all brancllcs of
feminist aciivit). within tlic ~~nivcrsities and x~illlo~t. is now being illore
e of social obligations, and enables academics to be seen to be recognising such
ing them. Miriam Tlali's stories cornanunicate the stoical
\\'idcly recognized, contest out ofwhich ncw practtces \\rill collie canllol, of wolnen's lives, and Head's biography becomes an exe?,Plum, a stolY with a
ho\ve\'er. lake tile form of a simple polarizing oiwtlitc h{ack: illat would
be to rc~loduce auld pcrpctLlatc the Self/Otller structures of apartlleid, In
Soutll Africa. as, 1 think. in North America. active ent1.y of black \Yoillen
into feminist politics first servcci to expose polaljty. hut $,ow it is diversity. a
aders and instruct them in their democratic obligations.
Tlali's stories are seen as both universally valid and
Illore complex Sense of the shifting elt'ects of .difference' Illat is coming to
the fore .... esseniiali~ln (on which apartlieid once thrived) can still be all
a\vkward component of tllc protest against wllite Ilegemony (Dztynlond
1996:xxii).
Acadelnic discourse is located within an evolving relation between metropole a
jt is a sad stoly about ]makeshift improvisations on tradition which. when scad
re~~cxively. suggests tile writer's own sense of loss and isolation .... It is
humor of the stoly. tlowing through the anger, mlhich gives it potency-a
lrulnorcomi~~gf~om ordinary. daily life (Daymond 1996a:233,235).
periphery, and the exchange of intellectual coinlnodities travelling back and forth ajo 'arduous process by wllicll Bessie Head' contributed to 'new workings of the
co17id0rs of power ]illking South Africa11 universities to those in the metropole is see
as evidence of reciprocal globalisation:
special sensitivity to the stresses and col~tlicts faced by
developing dynanlic between Lhe first and third worlds \will inevitably
the centre-margln coniiguration of the past (Daymond 1996:xxxviii), ~ l ~ ~ hindsight ~ i , enables ~ ~ Daymond c (1995:565) to claim that racist legislation did not
Tbday; in an era of reconstruction, the institution is interpreted as a point ofirlters
ecumenical social obligations, and responsiveness to the general \vijl of the
restructuring the university to meet the social and political needs ofa br
community:
date the Afi.ikanervictoly of 1948: 'And this being the early 1940~ neither side in the meeting
"We-Tllem" is yet positioned by the weight of legislated racial difference (Da~mond
rians report that legislated racial difference was embodied in
the 1927 Imtnorality Act, the 1936 abolition of the old Cape
c~lise and the application ofC1lapter IV of theNatives' Land and Trust Act. In the nineteenth
\flork amidst extremcs of pt-omise anci disillusjnnmcnt: ehangcs arc
sim~lltaneously htigc and piecemeal, sporadic .... As [lie legacy past is
defined and contained. ancl as new sociopolitical obligations are fhrlTlulated
in interaction with women just emerging froin oppression, [Iris 1~1oment offcrs
the ~,.iti~l, inlluence tended to [larden the hierarchies of race rather than dissolve tllem,
of Lugard's systetn of indirect rule which in turn dcvelopcd
Natal. See Maylam's (1994) argument that m~lllicipal intl~!~