Virginia Woolf (1929)
... and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in;...
Notes from Roxanne
History had to establish what it meant to be for example Dutch. It is a field which has a long tradition in selling ‘identity’ to those in power. invention of an identity → point of departure: contribution to establishment of ‘historical identity’ of women. History seems to be connected by definition to creating identities → politically effective. Inventing identities and positioning yourself in a way where the critical position of history might get lost. The texts of today problematizes this idea; try to find a way to do history without falling into the history/identity trap.
Fraser (Political scientist)
Finding the contribution which a political scientist can have to the world → through ‘needs’ instead of ‘rights’.
During the ’80 a political discussion about rights was central in the world between socialist- and political rights (communism and capitalism). Discussion about rights has shifted to discussion about needs. Claiming a voice by speaking about ‘the needs of… women, mothers, etc.’ “lets listen to their claims. For Fraser this was a discourse which she questioned: let’s not talk about ‘needs’ but the ‘interpretation’ of needs. → needs are not ‘simple’. Different discourse:
Oppositional discourse (speaking about the needs of people who are marginalized).
P.303, footnote 22: this type of oppositional needs → speaking on behave of “women”. Creation of an identity with specific needs be called: women. A political move. Social problems and their gendered connotation; poverty, violence, lack of opportunities etc. social problems are often seen as not political but social and gendered. Women know ‘what children need’, care for the ill etc. this language which was conservative and anti-feminist returns in this oppositional discourse. Again, a discussion about ‘what women need’.
Talk of expert discourse
Moment a need is politicized; a solution for a specific problem, an enormous group of ‘experts’ come along. Partly private sphere, and partly state institutions. Some knowledge of gender is not only oppositional but also becomes the ‘expert’ discourse. We as an expert in gender studies, them as not.
Re-privatization (neo-liberal talk) discourse
Authoritarian form of populism: private security. We need a family and if people want more, they need to fix it themselves: M. Thatcher: we need no social life.
p.312: group of teenage young black children: countered the power of ‘the expert’. Points out that there is a lot of resistance against ‘expert knowledge’ in this group. Countering the power of the expert through jokes etc. what is happening in this situation: talk about needs has an interpretation of needs. They countered the expert power by creating their own story. → example that contributes to ‘if we study needs, we should never say that there is an ultimate definition. Always consider the agency and the opposition of the people who it concerns. It would be terrible to take the expert position’. Resistance and the power to define the needs. → who has the power to define what is true and not, what is a need or not etc. all talk about needs that does not leave space for oppositional voices of needs that are discussed and can be an extension of state power. Never take a definition for granted. Listen to their voices.
Reducing people to their problems and not listen to their voices.
Joan Scott (Historian)
What gender history can do by listening to voices from the past which are considered as marginal. Can we identify the voices of people of the past who has not been heard before? Refers often to oral history. Worried about the absence of the experience of certain people in the past. When historians claim that they have access to the experiences of people in the past, they will make invisible how the construction of the subjectivity that could have this experience, could come about. When we look at experiences as simple, and the transfer and to represent, we forget that experience is never simple in itself, and has to be experienced by someone whose subjectivity is created and allows a specific form of experience. Scott does with experience what Fraser does with needs. The problem is that the moment that you make experience ‘simple’ the historian can go there; you use the image of the historian archive, that metaphor what people experience and suggest that there is a reality and that the historian is privileged to find it.
→ Spivak; distinguishes historians and literature scholars. Historians look at the text from the past and unravels it to assign a new subject position to the subaltern. Deconstruct the text and find ‘a voice’ a marginalized voice. Using the text to get to the position of the subaltern.
Don’t ‘give them a history’. Real historical work would be to analyze the narratives that we have available to understand how subject formation takes place. We would confront the limits of the discipline. We no longer see history as finding the forgotten pieces of the past but problematize the position and identity making. (p.777) but the historical figure as the historian is in the position to recognize experience.
Literature scholars don’t look for the reality of the position. But looks at the construction that made the subject position possible in the first place. It is not looking for the ‘real’ but looking at the subject position. More critical in this sense. How the narrative position makes it possible to tell a story.
Can we write different forms of history in which we do not only look at brave historians or brave historical figures? Give a voice to the ‘less brave’ → discourse creates a subject into the historical discipline. Experience has to be ‘experienced’, but you have to understand in what conditions experience can come about.
Make history a part of your critical analysis.
... and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in;...
Notes from Roxanne
History had to establish what it meant to be for example Dutch. It is a field which has a long tradition in selling ‘identity’ to those in power. invention of an identity → point of departure: contribution to establishment of ‘historical identity’ of women. History seems to be connected by definition to creating identities → politically effective. Inventing identities and positioning yourself in a way where the critical position of history might get lost. The texts of today problematizes this idea; try to find a way to do history without falling into the history/identity trap.
Fraser (Political scientist)
Finding the contribution which a political scientist can have to the world → through ‘needs’ instead of ‘rights’.
During the ’80 a political discussion about rights was central in the world between socialist- and political rights (communism and capitalism). Discussion about rights has shifted to discussion about needs. Claiming a voice by speaking about ‘the needs of… women, mothers, etc.’ “lets listen to their claims. For Fraser this was a discourse which she questioned: let’s not talk about ‘needs’ but the ‘interpretation’ of needs. → needs are not ‘simple’. Different discourse:
Oppositional discourse (speaking about the needs of people who are marginalized).
P.303, footnote 22: this type of oppositional needs → speaking on behave of “women”. Creation of an identity with specific needs be called: women. A political move. Social problems and their gendered connotation; poverty, violence, lack of opportunities etc. social problems are often seen as not political but social and gendered. Women know ‘what children need’, care for the ill etc. this language which was conservative and anti-feminist returns in this oppositional discourse. Again, a discussion about ‘what women need’.
Talk of expert discourse
Moment a need is politicized; a solution for a specific problem, an enormous group of ‘experts’ come along. Partly private sphere, and partly state institutions. Some knowledge of gender is not only oppositional but also becomes the ‘expert’ discourse. We as an expert in gender studies, them as not.
Re-privatization (neo-liberal talk) discourse
Authoritarian form of populism: private security. We need a family and if people want more, they need to fix it themselves: M. Thatcher: we need no social life.
p.312: group of teenage young black children: countered the power of ‘the expert’. Points out that there is a lot of resistance against ‘expert knowledge’ in this group. Countering the power of the expert through jokes etc. what is happening in this situation: talk about needs has an interpretation of needs. They countered the expert power by creating their own story. → example that contributes to ‘if we study needs, we should never say that there is an ultimate definition. Always consider the agency and the opposition of the people who it concerns. It would be terrible to take the expert position’. Resistance and the power to define the needs. → who has the power to define what is true and not, what is a need or not etc. all talk about needs that does not leave space for oppositional voices of needs that are discussed and can be an extension of state power. Never take a definition for granted. Listen to their voices.
Reducing people to their problems and not listen to their voices.
Joan Scott (Historian)
What gender history can do by listening to voices from the past which are considered as marginal. Can we identify the voices of people of the past who has not been heard before? Refers often to oral history. Worried about the absence of the experience of certain people in the past. When historians claim that they have access to the experiences of people in the past, they will make invisible how the construction of the subjectivity that could have this experience, could come about. When we look at experiences as simple, and the transfer and to represent, we forget that experience is never simple in itself, and has to be experienced by someone whose subjectivity is created and allows a specific form of experience. Scott does with experience what Fraser does with needs. The problem is that the moment that you make experience ‘simple’ the historian can go there; you use the image of the historian archive, that metaphor what people experience and suggest that there is a reality and that the historian is privileged to find it.
→ Spivak; distinguishes historians and literature scholars. Historians look at the text from the past and unravels it to assign a new subject position to the subaltern. Deconstruct the text and find ‘a voice’ a marginalized voice. Using the text to get to the position of the subaltern.
Don’t ‘give them a history’. Real historical work would be to analyze the narratives that we have available to understand how subject formation takes place. We would confront the limits of the discipline. We no longer see history as finding the forgotten pieces of the past but problematize the position and identity making. (p.777) but the historical figure as the historian is in the position to recognize experience.
Literature scholars don’t look for the reality of the position. But looks at the construction that made the subject position possible in the first place. It is not looking for the ‘real’ but looking at the subject position. More critical in this sense. How the narrative position makes it possible to tell a story.
Can we write different forms of history in which we do not only look at brave historians or brave historical figures? Give a voice to the ‘less brave’ → discourse creates a subject into the historical discipline. Experience has to be ‘experienced’, but you have to understand in what conditions experience can come about.
Make history a part of your critical analysis.
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