Sara Ahmed (2000). “Whose counting?.” Feminist Theory 1(1): 97-103.
"In a critical horizon whereby relativist and universalist models of feminist theory are no longer possible, we must begin with a complicated and contingent model of the production of feminist theory." 97
"Rather than beginning by asking what is the relationship between feminist theory and practice, or between feminist theory and other kinds of theory, we need to ask: how is that relationship itself produced, and how is it an effect of the forms of production, exchange and consumption that are already in place within the institutions we inhabit?" 98
"how does the movement of ‘feminist theories’ between and within various institutional locations involve its transformation?" 98
Difficulty and abstractness as a way of defining theory
"To say that the feminist work that gets recognized as feminist theory is often more difficult or abstract is not to criticize such work: it is my belief that feminism, as a political programme as well as a pedagogic one, needs to use different forms of writing in different times and places." 98
"Part of the work that is done by ‘feminist theory’ may be, then, the posing of a critical challenge to the criteria that operate within the academy about what constitutes theory per se." 99
"feminist theorizing might involve recognizing that theory is produced ‘outside’ the spaces in which is it recognized as being produced within the academy." 99
"we can think of feminist theory as being produced precisely where social norms about gender are contested: whether that contestation takes place in educational settings, in political mobilization or in everyday life and social interaction." 99
"Theorizing involves a set of techniques for moving beyond local sites of resistance, and indeed, of linking the local to other locals, or broader social processes. Theorizing, after all, is something feminists do in order to explain why gender norms are so difficult to contest in the first place" 99
"Feminist theorizing is about producing different ways of dwelling and moving in the world in the very act of explaining its own existence, as a form of contestation, in local spaces" 100
"feminist theorizing will always operate in a double register: it will both contest other ways of understanding the world (those theories that are often not seen as theories as they are assumed to be ‘common sense’), as it will contest itself, as a way of interpreting the world (or of ‘making sense’ in a way which contests what is ‘common’)." 101
"Internal critique is a practical and theoretical necessity: it is about doing politics in a way which recognizes that political action involves the use of categories that may be exclusionary, or even violent, when they are not recognized as categories." 102 Reminds me of the Double Down News clip from Ayishat X Akanb who discusses the problems surrounding the self-identification of 'wokeness'. People who reach a level they consider to be enlightened, shit on the people below them rather than offer a helping hand, they consider themselves to be 'woke' and everyone else to be 'asleep'. https://www.facebook.com/DoubleDownNews/videos/283034889216494/ Internal critique of the woke brigade is necessary to restore compassion to the social justice movement.
"practical theorizing is about making links by moving between local spaces of inhabitance in a way which recognizes difference and conflict. It involves finding better ways of speaking and working with each other." 102
"In a critical horizon whereby relativist and universalist models of feminist theory are no longer possible, we must begin with a complicated and contingent model of the production of feminist theory." 97
"Rather than beginning by asking what is the relationship between feminist theory and practice, or between feminist theory and other kinds of theory, we need to ask: how is that relationship itself produced, and how is it an effect of the forms of production, exchange and consumption that are already in place within the institutions we inhabit?" 98
"how does the movement of ‘feminist theories’ between and within various institutional locations involve its transformation?" 98
Difficulty and abstractness as a way of defining theory
"To say that the feminist work that gets recognized as feminist theory is often more difficult or abstract is not to criticize such work: it is my belief that feminism, as a political programme as well as a pedagogic one, needs to use different forms of writing in different times and places." 98
"Part of the work that is done by ‘feminist theory’ may be, then, the posing of a critical challenge to the criteria that operate within the academy about what constitutes theory per se." 99
"feminist theorizing might involve recognizing that theory is produced ‘outside’ the spaces in which is it recognized as being produced within the academy." 99
"we can think of feminist theory as being produced precisely where social norms about gender are contested: whether that contestation takes place in educational settings, in political mobilization or in everyday life and social interaction." 99
"Theorizing involves a set of techniques for moving beyond local sites of resistance, and indeed, of linking the local to other locals, or broader social processes. Theorizing, after all, is something feminists do in order to explain why gender norms are so difficult to contest in the first place" 99
"Feminist theorizing is about producing different ways of dwelling and moving in the world in the very act of explaining its own existence, as a form of contestation, in local spaces" 100
"feminist theorizing will always operate in a double register: it will both contest other ways of understanding the world (those theories that are often not seen as theories as they are assumed to be ‘common sense’), as it will contest itself, as a way of interpreting the world (or of ‘making sense’ in a way which contests what is ‘common’)." 101
"Internal critique is a practical and theoretical necessity: it is about doing politics in a way which recognizes that political action involves the use of categories that may be exclusionary, or even violent, when they are not recognized as categories." 102 Reminds me of the Double Down News clip from Ayishat X Akanb who discusses the problems surrounding the self-identification of 'wokeness'. People who reach a level they consider to be enlightened, shit on the people below them rather than offer a helping hand, they consider themselves to be 'woke' and everyone else to be 'asleep'. https://www.facebook.com/DoubleDownNews/videos/283034889216494/ Internal critique of the woke brigade is necessary to restore compassion to the social justice movement.
"practical theorizing is about making links by moving between local spaces of inhabitance in a way which recognizes difference and conflict. It involves finding better ways of speaking and working with each other." 102
Comments
Post a Comment