[csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS
Ien Ang
I.Ang at uws.edu.au
Sat Jul 29 14:28:38 CST 2006
Hi all
It is a pity that Emma Dawson had chosen to single out Amanda Wise's
call-for-papers text to make her points. Ironically, Amanda is one of
the few people amongst us who has consistently engaged beyond academia
in her work, either through public discussion or through collaborations
with government or community groups. I therefore completely understand
that she is upset.
In more general terms, I think Mark Davis is right about the need for us
to think about reasons for the (real or perceived) lack of impact of CS
perspectives on public debate. In relation to multiculturalism, for
example, my sense is that one important reason is that we have
difficulty articulating our 'message' in a context where public opinion
is so heavily polarised (you are either 'for' or 'against' it). From a
CS point of view, however, (multicultural) reality is complex and
contradictory - and in my experience this is a very difficult message to
convey, both intellectually and politically. Greg Noble and I (and
others) have tried to communicate this in our recent report for SBS,
Connecting Diversity: Paradoxes of Multicultural Australia. Talking
about 'paradoxes' was our way of saying that we should go beyond a
simple discourse of for/against. Interestingly, Emma Dawson referred to
this report - positively - in an earlier essay of hers for the New
Mathilda.
All in all, this whole affair serves to remind us once again that 'the
public sphere' is a rough, potentially dangerous and often unfair place,
where many get hurt. We have to be prepared to wear this, and accept
that engaging within it is hard and risky work.
Ien
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz (Mark Davis)
2. Fwd: [csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz (Vera Mackie)
3. RE: RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz (Amanda Wise)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 22:43:24 +1000 (EST)
From: "Mark Davis" <davismr at unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Message-ID:
<37350.58.104.99.127.1154090604.squirrel at webmail.unimelb.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8
With all due respect to those concerned, I'm not convinced that Emma
Dawson is making any attempt to 'delegitimise' academic discussion. As
she
writes:
>Lest I be sternly rebuked by fellow students and researchers, let me
>make
it clear that I fully >support rigorous scholarship and will vigorously
defend the right of academics to contribute to >the intellectual
development of the human race at the most theoretical level. The
apparently >abstract and often obscure work by researchers in social
sciences and cultural studies is >essential to the development of ideas.
Nor, as someone suggested, is she suggesting that: 'it is OK for
academics to engage in abstract theorising, but then says we can't do it
in relation to this topic.'
Rather, she raises some salient points about the failure of 'theory' in
public debate, whilst deriding conservative anti-multiculturalism.
There is, I think, a useful and necessary debate to be had about this
lack of impact. Bewilderingly, from where I sit, even after three
decades of 'theory' - and of neoliberalism - it is still primarily
old-fashioned liberals representing progressive positions in public
debate. While there are plenty of institutional reasons for that, I
don't think 'we' can blame others for ever. The penultimate para of her
piece stands both as a defense of our intellectual practice, and as an
indictment of our relative failure to work the public sphere proper:
>Australia can ill afford this kind of intellectual segregation: while
conservatives lament that our >universities are held captive by
left-wing thought, progressives should also be distressed by >their
inability to penetrate the public sphere and to counter the often
destructive and
ill->informed statements of commentators whose pronouncements could
easily be destroyed by a >well-researched and clearly written argument.
Disclosure: while I don't know Emma, I do know her work and am one of
the OzProspect board members who granted her fellowship.
Best wishes for the conference
Mark
NB: someone earlier made a throwaway point about Emma's belonging to a
tank whilst criticising them. OzProspect is non-partisan and survives,
just, on a miniscule budget compared to multimillion dollar partisan
juggernauts like the CIS. Equivalence? We wish!
M
--
Mark Davis
Publishing and Communications Program
Department of English with Cultural Studies University of Melbourne
61-3-8344-3349
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:09:31 +1000
From: Vera Mackie <vmackie at unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Fwd: [csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Message-ID: <411d2285f8f78ce5335b72c8253a330e at unimelb.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It seems to me that there is a constant slippage in this debate.
The theories we deploy to understand cultural phenomena are one thing.
The language we use to communicate our conclusions based on testing
those theories is another thing.
It's quite possible to deploy the insights of our favourite theorists,
but to choose how we communicate this.
This could be the choice between 'quotidian' or 'everyday' as we have
seen in this debate (although quotidian is hardly an abstruse word!).
Or it could mean choosing to use technical words like 'habitus', but
adding a gloss in simpler language We do this all the time, when
lecturing to undergraduates, or when reviewing books for the newspapers
rather than academic journals.
We need to keep the practice of rigorous theorising and testing of
theories.
We need to expose the unarticulated theories behind the popular debates.
(There's nothing more dangerous than an unarticulated theory masked as
common sense.) In other words, we shouldn't go along with this slippage
of equating academic rigour with difficult and exclusionary language.
Vera Mackie
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Mark Davis" <davismr at unimelb.edu.au>
> Date: 28 July 2006 10:43:24 PM
> To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz
>
> With all due respect to those concerned, I'm not convinced that Emma
> Dawson is making any attempt to 'delegitimise' academic discussion. As
> she
> writes:
>
>> Lest I be sternly rebuked by fellow students and researchers, let me
>> make
> it clear that I fully >support rigorous scholarship and will
> vigorously defend the right of academics to contribute to >the
> intellectual development of the human race at the most theoretical
> level. The apparently >abstract and often obscure work by researchers
> in social sciences and cultural studies is >essential to the
> development of ideas.
>
> Nor, as someone suggested, is she suggesting that: 'it is OK for
> academics to engage in abstract theorising, but then says we can't do
> it in relation to this topic.'
>
> Rather, she raises some salient points about the failure of 'theory'
> in public debate, whilst deriding conservative anti-multiculturalism.
>
> There is, I think, a useful and necessary debate to be had about this
> lack of impact. Bewilderingly, from where I sit, even after three
> decades of 'theory' - and of neoliberalism - it is still primarily
> old-fashioned liberals representing progressive positions in public
> debate. While there are plenty of institutional reasons for that, I
> don't think 'we' can blame others for ever. The penultimate para of
> her piece stands both as a defense of our intellectual practice, and
> as an indictment of our relative failure to work the public sphere
> proper:
>
>> Australia can ill afford this kind of intellectual segregation: while
> conservatives lament that our >universities are held captive by
> left-wing thought, progressives should also be distressed by >their
> inability to penetrate the public sphere and to counter the often
> destructive and
> ill->informed statements of commentators whose pronouncements could
> easily be destroyed by a >well-researched and clearly written
argument.
>
> Disclosure: while I don't know Emma, I do know her work and am one of
> the OzProspect board members who granted her fellowship.
>
> Best wishes for the conference
> Mark
>
> NB: someone earlier made a throwaway point about Emma's belonging to a
> tank whilst criticising them. OzProspect is non-partisan and survives,
> just, on a miniscule budget compared to multimillion dollar partisan
> juggernauts like the CIS. Equivalence? We wish!
>
> M
>
> --
> Mark Davis
> Publishing and Communications Program
> Department of English with Cultural Studies University of Melbourne
> 61-3-8344-3349
>
>
>
> _______________________________________
>
> csaa-forum
> discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia
>
> www.csaa.asn.au
>
> change your subscription details at
> http://lists.cdu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/csaa-forum
>
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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 11:39:03 +1000
From: "Amanda Wise" <Amanda.Wise at scmp.mq.edu.au>
Subject: RE: [csaa-forum] RE: Another attack on CS in the Oz
To: <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
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Dear List,
I'd like to add another dimension to this discussion.
My initial distress at Emma Dawson's piece was her blatant
misrepresentation
and selective quoting from a CFP I sent out to various lists for the
Everyday Multiculturalism conference. In addition to the things you've
all
mentioned, I simply felt she lacked journalistic integrity; at no time
did
she contact us, as conference conveners, to ask about the content of the
conference or what kind of papers we were after.
For those of you interested, I am copying the conference notice (word
for
word) below. You will notice only a small part-paragraph of complex
language
(sure that's ok, given that its an academic conference) and the rest is
extremely accessible language; more accessible than most CFPs I've seen.
As
an academic conference, I also can't see what the problem is with
mentioning
Bourdieu in the CFP! If you compare it with how she presented it in her
article, you will see she has seriously misrepresented the conference.
Nor had she has ever seen a list of abstracts or presenters. The irony
is
that we deliberately convened this conference and chose the words in the
CFP
to attract papers that were grounded and not too over-theorised and
texty!
(it is an interesting aside that most of our presenters are from
anthropology and not cultural studies..but that's another debate all
together)
If she had bothered to speak with us before attacking the conference and
its
terminology; she would have discovered that;
- Our two keynotes are leading figures in cultural research doing
research
that engages beyond the academy who both regularly communicate their
work
through the media(Ien Ang and Greg Noble)
- That about 20% of the audience will be non-academics
- That we have two full panels of speakers from outside academia
(government
and community ppl)
- Indeed we have received numerous emails from practitioners interested
in
the conference. I think some people underestimate their interest in
academic
discussions. We don't always have to 'dumb down'. They are looking for
fresh
new ideas and want to be stimulated to find new ways to do their front
line
work.
- That we planned a media campaign to promote the conference and the
papers
within it.
- We used the word 'quotidian' only once. What is the problem with that
word? It captures something slightly different from the banal
connotations
of 'everyday'. We also provided a simple definition. Of course in lay
contexts I always use the latter term. But this was an academic CFP for
goodness sake!
So in short; I simply felt that she (mis)used our CFP as an easy target
to
make a point, however legitimate (or otherwise) that point may be.
Surely
that is not good journalistic practice.
Call for papers is below FYI
Cheers
Amanda
HERE IS THE CALL FOR PAPERS
-----------------------------------------------
Everyday Multiculturalism Conference
28 & 29th September 2006
Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University
Key note speakers:
Professor Ien Ang, ARC Professorial Fellow, Centre for Cultural
Research,
University of Western Sydney
Dr Greg Noble, School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western
Sydney
While research on Australian multiculturalism and racism is well
developed
in Australia, qualitative research into everyday modes of lived
multiculturalism, remains fairly limited. This two day conference seeks
to
bring together researchers exploring everyday experiences of cultural
diversity and difference.
The conference will be divided into two parts:
1) Everyday Multiculturalism - Open theme
Day one will be an open themed day on Everyday Multiculturalism. Papers
in
this section will engage with the quotidian dimensions of living with
diversity. Quotidian diversity has variously been described as
'togetherness-in-difference' (Ang 2000), and 'inhabiting difference'
(Hage
1998). We take the term to mean those perspectives on cultural diversity
which recognise the embodied or inhabited nature of living with cultural
difference.
We are particularly interested in papers that focus on the intersections
and
relationships between cultural groups, rather than research taking a
single
ethnic group as a focus. Papers may explore the interconnections between
the
everyday and larger discourses; everyday interconnections, affinities,
and
solidarities, and everyday disjunctures, discomforts, and racisms.
Papers may explore modes of living with and across difference in
suburbia or
regional Australia such as through food, neighbouring, shopping or
sport, or
issues such as multicultural place-sharing, and battles over place
identity
and belonging. Papers which take an embodied approach, such as through
frameworks such as affect or Bourdieu's habitus are also particularly
welcome.
2) Cronulla and the Everyday Politics of Cultural Difference in Suburbia
Day two papers will present a collection of new work reflecting on the
Cronulla riots - the causes, the riots themselves, and their
ramifications.
The Cronulla riots caught many commentators by surprise.
Some commentators argued that the riots were a symptom of everyday
tensions,
others argued that Cronulla represents a failure of multiculturalism,
while
still others argued that it was a result of a decade of 'dog-whistle'
politics in Australia. Racism, ethnocentrism and other forms of
prejudice
are often born out of everyday encounters with difference intertwined
with
national and global politics and discourses. The aim of this day will be
to
offer an opportunity to scholars to present works-in-progress around the
Cronulla issue.
We invite proposals from any discipline that engage with any aspect of
'everyday multiculturalism' with a special focus on those employing
grounded
methodologies such as fieldwork, interviews, focus groups and
ethnographic
participant observation.
Special Panels:
. A panel featuring representatives of some of the more innovative
government and community interventions developed since the riots.
. A panel of representatives from SBS presenting on a new project for
SBS4
'Daily Australian Multicultural Life'.
Non-presenting audience members from within and outside academia are
encouraged to attend.
Website: http://www.crsi.mq.edu.au/Everydaymulticulturalism.htm
------------------------------
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