[csaa-forum] Re: csaa-forum Digest, Vol 16, Issue 33

[John Grech]

Hi Aren,

Aren Aizura wrote

>Hi John,
>
>Thanks for your reminder about the original point of departure for 
>the discussion. I know I responded to your post, but I was also 
>clear about responding to a particular tone in the discussion -- 
>and, more importantly, the framing of the discussion. I didn't mean 
>to single you out!
>
>>It may interest you to know that the move to
>>catagorise different forms of cultural studies
>>practices according to geography are not unique,
>>and can be found, to cite one example, Toby
>>Miller's A Companion to Cultural Studies where
>>you'll find a number of other writers, including
>>Graeme Turner, writing about this in a section
>>called "Part II: Places".
>
>Well, there's no harm in distinguishing particular kinds of work 
>according to geography. Geography and place are both obviously very 
>important. But the phrase "Australian cultural studies" means 
>something more than geography, I think. It also denotes a particular 
>way of imagining what 'Australia' is and that entity's relationship 
>to other places. If, with a couple of exceptions, people have talked 
>about Australia's relationship to the larger 'centres', the US, 
>Europe and UK, as being mostly formative of what Australian cultural 
>studies might be, it seems fair to point out the gaps in that 
>formulation.

Yes, pointing them out, indeed, is a starting point, but the next 
step  - which is to fill in some of those gaps, according to one's 
own experience of course and which is also about revealing what one 
knows and declaring how one sees those gaps are limiting the idea of, 
let's say, Australian cultural studies -  becomes ultimately more 
constructive because it expands a dialogue rather than shutting it 
down through simple criticism. For example, you say that Australian 
cultural studies means more than geography to you. Well, what does it 
mean to you, I have no idea.

>
>>I do not speak of how cultural studies is
>>practiced in India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain or
>>Portugal, or South Africa, because I have no
>>experience of working in those places. If you
>>wish to articulate your experiences of the places
>>where you have worked, then do so. I promise I
>>will not regard it as diminishing of the places
>>you speak about.
>
>Forgive me if I don't quite grasp what you mean when you talk about 
>'diminishing'. I'm definitely not trying to prove that people in 
>'other' places do things differently: that seems rather obvious. 
>Designating national cultural studies practices or models that 
>happen in 'other' places doesn't work, either. The point I was 
>making is closer to home -- within 'Australia' there are elsewheres. 
>People *here* are not at home under nationalising frameworks -- 
>either in disciplinary or working practices within cultural studies, 
>etc, or in daily life.

Yes, I couldnt agree more. Yet surely the point of having such a 
discussion is to open up the discourse so as to include as many 
individuals as want to be included. I felt your first post really 
only sought to criticise , and it appeared to target my post in doing 
so by sniping at what my post was saying without making a 
contribution to opening the dialogue out further, by filling in the 
gaps you indicated. Sure as hell, I cant fill the gaps you see for 
you, and nor can anyone else. What is more, I am not setting myself 
up as an authority in that sense at all. The extent of my authority, 
as far as I am concerned, is to speak of my own experiencs in as 
authentic a way as I can, within the limits of my own use of 
language. And I agree with you, most wholeheartedly, about the 
existence of many yet to be articulated others and elsewheres in 
Australia.

What I mean by diminishing is that it seemed that by attacking my 
post - and then not really opening out the terrains that it did not 
cover or attempt to cover - reduces the potential dialogue that can 
or could have been taking place under the rubric of Australian 
cultural studies to the terms and parameters established by the 
discourse surrounding the dialogue already.Yet I do not speak for 
Australian cultural studies, and my post only attempted to respond to 
the questions put by Melissa's original email, based on my experience 
of Australian cultural studies as well as elsewhere, within the terms 
of the discussion that had grown up around it. You have justifiably 
criticised  the limitations of that discourse and those parameters. I 
accepted those parameters because I wished to participate in the 
dialogue constructively by adding what I thought was something 
valuable to it - based on my experience. Perhaps I was wrong in doing 
that passively, and I thank you for pointing that out, but it was 
done out of respect of the  those who had already participated in 
establishing the dialogue. In short, then, it seems to me that to 
criticise a discussion and then to leave it at that without at least 
trying to sketch out some of the alternative spaces and terrains your 
post hinted at diminishes the capabilities of those who are making up 
that discursive space which is now called Australian cultural studies 
to deal more openly with what you were trying to say. Similarly, if 
you too decided to speak about your experiences, I would seek to 
avoid diminishing the spaces and subjects you might identify by 
refusing to allow the community who make up those discourses to 
extend themselves even beyond what you would articulate about them. 
In that sense, neither you nor I can rightly speak for others, but we 
sure as hell have a right to speak for ourselves. When uttered as 
self declaring speech, as such, whatever we may choose to say should 
not limit the scope and dimensions and capabilities of our subjects, 
rather it only positions us in relation to our subjects with others 
involved in the discussions we are having. Yet the other still has a 
mind of their own, and, as the other posts responding to my own post 
clearly indicate, people are not slow in taking their own slants on 
what anyone says.

I hope that explains what I mean by diminishing a bit better now.

ciao

john


-- 

*****************
John Grech
Artist & Writer
*****************

On-line Projects:
Interempty Space : The Global City <http://www.jgrech.dds.nl>

Sharkfeed
<http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/25402/20020806/www.abc.net.au/sharkfeed/index.htm>

On-line Writing:
"Beyond the Binary: New Media and the Extended Body"
Mediatopia on-line exhibition and symposium
http://www.mediatopia.net/grech.html

"Empty Space and the City: The Reoccupation of Berlin"
Radical History Review
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1grech.html
********************